Set of the day

Paul Cornell is a prolific writer with a seemingly effortless ability to go from one genre and one medium to another. He’s written extensively in television from shows like “Coronation Street” and “Casualty” to “Primeval” and “Robin Hood.” He’s also written novels and short stories,... more

Paul Cornell is a prolific writer with a seemingly effortless ability to go from one genre and one medium to another. He’s written extensively in television from shows like “Coronation Street” and “Casualty” to “Primeval” and “Robin Hood.” He’s also written novels and short stories, audio dramas and comic books. His comics miniseries “Knight and Squire” about a pair of British superheroes is a particular gem. He is perhaps best known for his work on “Doctor Who,” having written multiple television episodes, novels and audio dramas and the animated “Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka.” Cornell has written multiple episodes of the series like “Father’s Day,” one of the first season’s best and most emotionally affecting episodes, and the two-parter “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood,” which adapted one of Cornell’s novels. He also created the character of Bernice Summerfield, whose adventures have been continued in a series of novels and audio plays.

Cornell is currently writing two comic book series. One, “Saucer Country,” is ending, but it’s returning next year. The other is a new “Wolverine” series with artist Alan Davis that launched in March. This month Cornell’s newest project, the novel “London Falling” comes out in the U.S. The first of a series that Cornell is calling The Shadow Police, the book centers on a police unit in contemporary London which accidentally find itself able to see the dark magic swirling about London and faces off against a mobster with supernatural resources. The book taps into the long and complicated history of London and takes an analytic look at magic, offering a very unique take on urban fantasy.


ALEX DUEBEN: I really enjoyed London Falling and you’ve written novels before, but where did this book start?

PAUL CORNELL: This one started as a TV show pitch. It was my thought–many, many years ago–that this would be a TV show, which never worked out. We actually got close on a couple of occasions, but it was very different. Basically it’s just the characters and the central idea that are still in the novel. The idea of clashing together a very realistic police procedural with dark magic and the supernatural and monsters and historical London lore and mayhem, I’ve always thought would be a very fertile ground.

AD: Historical London lore has such a rich vein of stories to tap into and I love the way the book incorporates and tackles those stories

PC: Just uncovering so many layers, particularly the West Ham stuff. There’s this football club with an occult background and a historical background that’s just rich and fascinating and interesting. With London Falling, there’s something science fictional about the way it tackles urban fantasy. It’s almost a classic John W. Campbell problem solving story. Four characters are put under extreme stress and have their world turned upside down. They’re an undercover police unit and when they accidentally gain the ability to see the dark magic of London, they freak out for a while and then decide that they have to use real police tactics against this stuff. That’s a classic Campbell-ian problem solving story. They have to come up with some extraordinary real world solutions and they have to pick apart what the magic is through ops boards–the boards you see in operations rooms where police will put up photos and particular connections between things. They’re taking apart the business of magic and turning it into one of those patterns on the wall.

My favorite section of the book is one where they talk about the apparent existence of a ghost bus. Do buses have souls? How is this object got an afterlife? That’s how we go about it. We don’t just accept that there are these things. We pick them apart. If they were to encounter a centaur they would be very interested–and they’re not going to because what on earth is a centaur doing in London, although there is a unicorn in the future–they would say, how on earth are you? Can you give us a statement as to your parentage? Was there a horse and a person? How did this happen? That’s the kind of book that it is. It is an urban fantasy. It consciously wears the shape of one of those on its sleeve, but at the same time it’s so procedural.

AD: I enjoyed that about the novel. So many urban fantasy stories take everything casually and no one ever bats an eyelash at anything that happens.

PC: I do love those fantasies where somebody is continually going, there are vampires? Come on! These days it’s almost like characters in fantasy have lived through all the previous fantastical versions. Maybe that’s sort of realistic in that the media representation of this stuff have invaded our lives so that if we encountered a vampire we would be pretty damn prepared if they actually ran on the same rules that we’re used to. No no no I’m not going to invite you in. What kind of idiot do you think I am? I’ve seen a vampire movie.

AD: There is a certain almost cynicism about the fact that’s the default setting.

PC: Take profession from column A and mythical creature from column B. It’s a centaur estate agent! [laughs]

AD: I think that may be coming out next month. [laughs] I also enjoyed how football–or soccer–is incorporated into book and i feel like I should ask about your feeling about West Ham football.

PC: I have no feelings about West Ham! I’ve been interviewed for the West Ham fanzines and all these people are popping up on twitter going, you must either love West Ham or hate West Ham. I’m a cricket fan. I don’t care about West Ham either way. I’m sure they’re lovely. I don’t think they have a terrifying supernatural being working with them. Even in the book, that’s not they’re intention. That just happens to them. I’m really interested in their historical roots. How they’re connected to Anne Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII, and anybody scoring a hat trick against them dies in horrible, horrible circumstances. Things like that.

AD: So that’s true? There’s a legend that whoever scores a hat trick on them dies horribly?

PC: There is. It is not actual true, let us say. If it does happen, let’s just say that England’s leading scorer right now is in trouble. It’s been a long time since he did that, so I don’t think he’s going to have anything come after him. [laughs]

AD: I don’t want to give away any of the plot, but it’s made clear in the end that Detective Superintendent Lofthouse has a role in the book greater than has been revealed, and I presume that she’s going to play a bigger role in future books.

PC: Lofthouse is a major factor in the second book and why she’s been behaving in this strange way is thoroughly explained and part of the plot of Book Two, which is called The Severed Streets, we decided yesterday having spent four days yelling strange combinations of words at each other. [laughs] The Severed Streets. My plan with these books, like a crime series, there’s going to be a case solved in every book but the backstory continues. The plot of the second one is that Jack the Ripper is back and he’s only killing rich white men.

AD: You also have two ongoing comics projects, one beginning and one ending. The one which is ending is Saucer Country, of which I’m a fan, and which you mentioned on your blog will return next year. Would you like to give me and other fans hope?

PC: We haven’t signed contracts yet but I have every reason to believe we will be starting season two in comic form next year. In February, even. We’ve been talking to some lovely people about this and I think Saucer Country readers have a huge reason to be hopeful. I’m very much thankful to them for that. The sudden cancellation meant that I had to wrap things up really quickly, far too quickly to actually wrap the whole comic up. I thought about all the different plot threads I had to answer questions for and Ryan had already started drawing the first issue of the last three issue arc. That was just going to be a regular arc so the only way I could have finished the whole thing in two issues would have been in a lecture hall with a series of diagrams and charts going so that meant that and this meant this. [laughs]

Having to suddenly finish off a season meant that we were always going to get where we were going with Arcadia’s Presidential journey at the end of those three issues. I thought, well, we can actually reveal, in a way that feels nicely paced and real, a major mystery. To pull something right into the light to indicate that we know where everything is in the shadows and we can pull it out when we want to. So at the end of the last issue we discovered exactly who the Pioneer Couple who have been haunting Professor Kidd are. We’ll hear their story next issue. It was quite a pleasure to be able to wrap things up in an end of season way. I think more comics should have seasons, actually. You know how certain comics kind of fade away at the end of their runs and we really don’t. This is one of our most cracking arcs and Ryan is hitting it out of the park. We all focus right to the end and we’re all looking forward to being back next year.

AD: For people who don’t know–but should because it’s coming back soon–what is Saucer Country?

PC: Saucer Country is the story of Arcadia Alvarado who is a Presidential candidate and the Governor of New Mexico who is abducted by aliens on the eve of announcing her Presidential run. It’s The West Wing meets The X-Files. It’s about how political power collides with UFO mythology. I’ve been inured in UFO mythology since I was tiny and I think maybe people were expecting an alien invasion and now I realize that was the expectation I think I should have given different cues in issue one so that they weren’t expecting that. Now I think our core audience have got behind the idea that this is a book about mythology. It’s a book more about what’s in the shadows than what’s going to come blazing out of the skies and threaten Washington. So yeah, lots more of that next year. I’ve been pleased and delighted by it.

I’m preparing an exhibit for the World Science Fiction Convention where I’m toastmaster in Texas this summer where we’ll be taking pages of script, pages of original pencils, inks and color roughs and final colors and demonstrating as a static exhibit to the audience how we put together Saucer Country. It’s had a nice reception among science fiction fans. This is a nice thing to find.

AD: Saucer Country is drawn by Ryan Kelly, who’s a fabulous artist, and Wolverine, the other comic series you’re writing, which just debuted is drawn by the great Alan Davis.

PC: I’m really lucky with my artists. I work with so many good artists. These guys are both awesome. They both do great acting. They can both do great character work. They’re both really good at storytelling. It’s really nice to not have to worry whether or not your artist can do something. In both cases I write quite complex emotional scripts and say not just what the characters look to be feeling, but what they’re trying to hide and things like that and the faces will do that so I don’t have to have anybody saying how they’re feeling. That’s them doing the heavy lifting. I just got off the phone to Jeanine Schaefer, my Wolverine editor, and just got something enormous wonderful for Wolverine confirmed. When I went back to Marvel I said please give me something right at the heart of the universe and this is right at the heart of the universe. Issue #1 is a little low-key. It just gets bigger and bigger exponentially. You would not believe what’s going to happen in issue six. [laughs] My little fanboy dreams have come true.

AD: As if working with Alan Davis isn’t enough of one.

PC: He’s so good. I think he’s got better, even. His art, particularly the modern stuff, is just a revelation.

AD: You said you wanted something at the heart of the universe as opposed to most of your comics like Captain Britain or Stormwatch or Demon Knights, which are off to the side.

PC: Yeah. I tend to get theses cult-y, fringe titles that get canceled. My personal best is fifteen issues. When I was working on Action Comics, my wife said, well at least they’re not going to cancel that. They’re rebooted the whole universe after [I wrote] fifteen issues! [laughs] I’ve never had an issue sixteen. When we get to Wolverine sixteen we’re going to have on the cover, sixteenth issue spectacular!

AD: One of the things that people love and I loved about Knight and Squire[/I and Captain Britain and other books you’ve written is that they have their own voice and they’re fun and different.

PC: Knight and Squire is, I think, my best work. I think that Jimmy Broxton’s a genius and the two of us I think put together something amazing, if I say so myself. I’m sorry. It doesn’t sound very humble when I say it’s a really good book. When I got the pages back and go, oh that’s a beautiful comic book and forget that I had anything to do with it. I’m not sitting here saying I’m great.

AD: Well I’ll say it. It’s great, but in that and Captain Britain, you’re writing British heroes and some people might not know who the characters are or might not know what some words are.

PC: We had a glossary in Knight and Squire. [laughs] I got a little worried about that. That’s why I went for Wolverine because you don’t want to end up being just the British guy. You want to be able to do anything. Much as I love the British heroes, I’ve had to say that no we’re not going to go back to that in Wolverine. We’ve got our own thing here. Come and see this. I adore Pete Wisdom. I miss him terribly. But somebody else can write for Pete right now. Britishness is hugely a part of what I am, but it’s important to be able to switch it off and do something else. I mean one of the interesting things with the London Falling books, the Shadow Police series, is now the second one we open up the world a lot. It’s like the world just grows exponentially and we get a lot of detail about why magic is like this. It’s actually part of the plot that they start talking about, oh we could go to New York or Paris. So it’s not specifically London books. We might do a book set in a foreign country and deal with the same sort of magic there. That’s a thought for somewhere down the line.

AD: I have to ask about Doctor Who.

PC: You don’t have to. [laughs]

AD: [laughs] But you are known for your work on Doctor Who, whether writing episodes for the series or before that writing novels and audio books. I remember when I interviewed Neil Gaiman he spoke about how he watched the show when he was little and he watches it today and that the show shaped how he looked at the world.

PC: I think that I feel much the same way. Terrence Dicks, who it’s been my privilege to know as a friend in recent years, his work on Doctor Who is responsible for almost everything I do. Doctor Who is the golden thread at the heart of my career. I keep trying to push away from it and I keep coming back to it. It’s just this immensely important thing in the psyche of Britons of a certain age–and that certain age is quite enormous now that it’s fifty years old. I’m saying a certain age because there’s a gap in the middle, about fifteen years where kids were raised without Doctor Who, the poor things.

It was responsible for giving me a way to deal with things in my childhood. Allowing me to deal with nameless dread. When you’re eight, you’re afraid of a lot of stuff. Some of it you’re right to be afraid of. Seeing Tom Baker amazingly defeat the Brain of Morbius–which came as a complete surprise to me because I didn’t think this was likely at all– just healed something in me. That was the first serial I saw and from that point on I was an enormous Doctor Who fan. There’s something about the shape of that show, the flavor of that show that has indeed influenced everything I’ve done since. It’s painful. It torments me every now and then. Like anything you love, it’s not a one way street. It’s not all positive but where would we be without it? It’s very valuable to many of us.

AD: There’s that great line by Bruno Bettleheim, I think, about how we don’t tell children fairy tales to let them know there are monsters, we tell them fairy tales to let them know that monsters can be defeated.

PC: Absolutely. But what the Doctor never says is just stand up to it and punch it on the nose and it’ll go away. What he says is: Run. Get round the back. Go find the clever way to deal with this. Go change the playing field. Don’t play it on their terms. I’m proud of my contribution. Just the amazing fact that in the end I managed to make a contribution would have pleased my eight year old self a great deal.

AD: You’re writing the Shadow Police novels, of which London Falling is only the first. Are you working on anything else right now?

PC: There’s loads. [laughs] What can I talk about? There’s a science fiction show I’m writing an episode for. It’s a completely new show not to do with anything anybody’s ever heard of. I’m really pleased with where we’re going on that. Whether that will get U.S. broadcast, who knows? I’ve got another Wild Cards story coming out on tor.com sometime this summer. It’s be lovely working with George R.R. Martin. He’s a real sweetheart. And there are several enormous things that I can’t mention. But lots of comics work in the indie field coming up. I’ve been talking to everybody. I’m not exclusive at Marvel. It’s lovely to be back at Marvel and I’m actually having a brilliant time there. I can’t emphasize that enough. But it’s nice to be able to play the field and do things for other people.