Obverse Books has released the first ever novel based on the Seventh Doctor serial, Paradise Towers, authorised by the TV story’s scribe, Stephen Wyatt, and written by Dale Smith.
As A Kang Should Be takes place back in the Towers, and examines the relationship between the Kangs and Caretakers.
Smith has written a number of Doctor Who books, including The Many Hands with the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones; Heritage with the Seventh Doctor and Ace; and Obverse Books’ Iris Wildthyme (Katy Manning) and Faction Paradox ranges. More recently, he’s worked on the Black Archive series of monographs.
Here’s the blurb:
“They call me Downspout, and I am not as a Kang should be.”
Paradise Towers is a place where worlds collide. The cold, clean efficiency of the caretakers’ Paradise. The wallscrawled decay of the Kangs’ Towers. The two coexist begrudgingly, lives on hold until the inbetweens come home from the war. Everybody will get along just fine as long as they stay in their lanes, obey the rules, and keep away from the basement.
So why is a caretaker looking for Downspout? ACAB, so it can’t be for anything good.
Best run, Downspout. Give heels. Don’t look back.
Because if he finds you, it could bring both Paradise and the Towers crashing down for good…
The book was originally called Paradise / Towers, but Smith explains:
“The book was being published as Paradise/Towers, representing the two opposing views of Kroagnon’s construction held by the Caretakers and the Kang. But all the other books that Obverse had published – the short story collections Build High for Happiness and Ice Hot – both had titles based on phrases from the original story. We had established a pattern, a pattern that had been broken by Paradise/Towers. In a literal “Stop the presses!” moment, editor Stuart Douglas and myself decided the story needed a different title, one that reflected both its content but also the world it had been written in: As A Kang Should Be.”