A new Special Edition of Lethbridge-Stewart: Mind of Stone, with new art and expanded text, is coming soon
Candy Jar Books have announced Mind of Stone: Special Edition by Iain McLaughlin, and sees Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart sent to prison for destroying a rural English village! It also brings back fan favourite, Captain Knight, from the 1968 Doctor Who serial The Web of Fear.
“In 2016 we released Mind of Stone and it was immediately obvious that book was something special,” recalls Shaun Russell, head of publishing at Candy Jar, “the combination of comedy and drama is near perfect.” On the changes readers can expect in the special edition he adds, “I was fascinated to find out what happened to Stanley after he was released from prison. In this new edition Iain delivers an apt final chapter, Straight as an Arrow. This chapter … moves the story forward to UNIT times, so it seemed appropriate to release the book alongside UNIT: Operation Wildcat and Other Stories and The Benton Files 2.”
Mind of Stone is written by popular audio and prose author Iain McLaughlin
Iain McLaughlin is a Scottish author well-known for his Doctor Who audios scripts and creating Erimem, the Egyptian pharaoh companion for Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor. His Doctor Who debut came in 2001 with the Big Finish audio drama, The Eye of the Scorpion, which introduced Erimem. He went on to write several audio plays and short stories for Big Finish, as well as a novel called The Coming of the Queen, the origin story of Erimem. In 2015 he also launched his own Doctor Who spin-off series of fiction, based on the now amnesiac time travelling Erimem. In 2004 he also co-wrote two scripts in Big Finish’s UNIT series, both of which featured Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
“I wanted Mind of Stone to start with a bang – and so we go straight into the Brig being sent to jail.”
Speaking in 2016 Iain said: “At Big Finish I was lucky enough to write for the older Brigadier. That was an absolute joy. It was an older, wiser but always resolute Brig. Passing years hadn’t diminished his sense of duty or his willingness to risk everything to do what needed doing and do what was right. Writing those scripts was as big a buzz for me as writing for the Doctor.
“I wanted Mind of Stone to start with a bang – and so we go straight into the Brig being sent to jail. From there… well, life inside Britain’s prison system wasn’t easy. I’d read about Wormwood Scrubs having been used as a military installation during WW2 and that helped me shape the story and plan how it would unfold. Using the Scrubs made me think of TV and films from the 60s and 70s that had a real edge. McVicar, Get Carter, Target, The Long Good Friday… suddenly the Brig in jail had some edge, and it was the kind of situation we’d never seen him in before. But he’s clever and he’s resourceful… the Brigadier isn’t Colonel Blimp. He’s a damned good soldier, and he’s a dangerous man in the right situation. I hope that’s the Brig you see in this book.”
Colin Howard, who recently worked on the Evil of the Daleks and The Power of the Daleks animations, provides updated artwork for the cover for Mind of Stone. The book also features a foreword by Doctor Who script editor, and author of the classic Fury from the Deep, the late Victor Pemberton.
Lethbridge-Stewart: Year One – Mind of Stone
‘You will be taken from this court and remanded in custody until your trial.’
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has been remanded to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, and his team have no idea why. Secrecy surrounds his case, but his team barely have a chance to process anything before they are sent on a mission to Egypt.
Why does it seem like Lethbridge-Stewart is going out ofhis way to court trouble from the prison’s most notorious inmates? And what does it have to do with well-known gangster Hugh Godfrey?
In the Ptolemaic Museum of Cairo, Anne Travers and her team are trying to uncover the mystery surrounding some very unusual stone statues. Statues that resemble those held in a secure military facility in Berkshire.
One thing connects these events; the mysterious cargo transported by Colonel Pemberton and Captain Knight in August 1968.
