Candy Jar Books is celebrating its 15th anniversary — and the 10th anniversary of its Lethbridge-Stewart range — this year, and so has announced two new volumes in its popular HAVOC Files range: The HAVOC Files 5 and The HAVOC Files 6.
And I’m happy to say I’ve got a very special story in the former!
UNIT range editor Tim Gambrell explains how this came about:
“As always with these things, there’s quite a story behind it. Earlier this year, out of the blue, Shaun Russell [Head of Publishing] suggested we should do another HAVOC Files book to celebrate the upcoming anniversaries. I suggested approaching authors from the Lethbridge-Stewart range to see if any of them were interested in telling stories connected in some way with their previous novels. Side-steps or continuations, that sort of thing.
“The take-up was huge! I realised pretty early on that if everyone delivered, we’d have far more than we needed for one standard volume. We’ve ended up with enough great stories for two standard volumes, from everything that was submitted.”
Shaun had an idea to give the books an extra dimension, as well. Each of them would have a short, exclusive comic strip, as a kind of intermission halfway through. There’s a Lucy Wilson comic strip in The HAVOC Files 5 — written by me! — and the Dominators and Quarks in The HAVOC Files 6, being the characters that lend themselves most readily to the comic strip medium, with some superb artwork from Steve Beckett and Martin Baines, respectively.
I’ve been a fan of comics since I was three years old, so writing my own was a literal dream come true. Seeing the pages by Beckett was a real treat — Lucy Wilson in: What A Waste! is only a few pages long, but we managed to get a few fun references in that Doctor Who fans will really appreciate. I’m overjoyed at the final project.
Tim continues:
“Although all the writers I approached wanted to be involved, not everyone had the time to produce something new. A few of our contributors had written stories for previous Lethbridge-Stewart collections that, for one reason or another, had never come to fruition. These were good tales, and thankfully, we were able to give them a home. Linking some of the stories back to previous collections, such as Lineage, or The Laughing Gnome, was still in the spirit of celebrating the range, so there was no issue about fitting them in.
“I know that regular Lethbridge-Stewart readers like to know where all the stories fit in. I wasn’t about to go messing about with the timeline. Andy Frankham-Allen worked out for the range, so I’ve stated where each story fits, or when it’s set, for those readers to whom it matters. I’ve also put the stories pretty much in chronological order across the two volumes – although I think the final story in The HAVOC Files 5 and the first story in The HAVOC Files 6 ended up transposed because they seemed to fit better that way. We start off in 1897 in HAVOC Files 5 and end up in 2025 at the end of The HAVOC Files 6.”
As well as there being the comic strips inside, Shaun also wanted the cover artwork to be special for these two complementary books. Adrian Salmon has provided distinctive cover art for several of the previous HAVOC Files volumes, and he was the natural choice to approach again.
Between Adrian, Shaun, and Tim, they came up with the idea for the covers to work on their own, but also for them to create a bigger image when placed alongside each other, the theme being Heroes and Villains.
The HAVOC Files 5 and The HAVOC Files 6 feature stories and artwork by Baz Greenland, Tim Gambrell, Gareth Madgwick, Tom Dexter, John Peel, me, Steve Beckett, Simon A Forward, Robert Mammone, George Ivanoff, Iain McLaughlin, Jonathan Macho, Andrew Allen, Sharon Bidwell, Nick Walters, Martin Baines, Aly Leeds, SJ Groenewegen, Chris Lynch, James Middleditch, and Adrian Salmon.
Both books will be available to buy exclusively from Candy Jar Books, on a limited print run, and will be a welcome addition to any collection.
Here’s the blurb for The HAVOC Files 5:
Take a trip down memory lane with ten new stories from Candy Jar’s Doctor Who spin-off ranges.
Join the Brigadier’s ancestors, Alistair and Lillian, as they dance the night away in Barcelona. Find out why Farmer Dury’s hens wouldn’t lay, courtesy of the Bledoe Cadets, and see what Professor Travers was up to in Wales during WWII with the Fourth Operational Corps.
We once again enter the Analysis Bureau, before the Fifth Operational Corps takes us on a series of adventures linked to some of the most popular Lethbridge-Stewart novels, pausing only to watch Lucy Wilson attempt to tidy her room in an exclusive new comic strip. The collection finishes up with UNIT investigating mass hallucinations in Scotland.
There’s something here for everyone!
And there’s the blurb for The HAVOC Files 6:
Take a trip down memory lane with eight new stories from Candy Jar’s Doctor Who spin-off ranges.
Join Bill Bishop as the Laughing Gnome plants him outside International Electromatics. Discover what Anne Travers finds lurking beneath the Museum of Scotland. The Brigadier faces old friends and foes with new colleagues at UNIT, before the Dominators and Quarks provide a brief intermission in an exclusive new comic strip.
The collection then closes with several stories linked to some of the most popular Lethbridge-Stewart novels, bringing the adventures right up-to-date in 2025.
There’s something here for everyone!
You can pre-order The HAVOC Files 5 and The HAVOC Files 6 now from Candy Jar Books!
