A Long Time Ago... with Paul Cornell
Hello there.
Welcome to A Long Time Ago… the fortnightly series where I ask a different guest to share with us a favourite Star Wars story and historical site. This started as a tie-in to my first piece of published writing, the article ART WARS for Star Wars Insider #226. The whole archive of my exploration of fourteen ancient art sites and every Star Wars story on my shelves can be found here.
Today, on this special last Sunday (and so the last A Long Time Ago…) of the year, I hand over to Paul Cornell!
Paul has written episodes of Elementary, Doctor Who (‘Father’s Day’ and ‘Human Nature’), Primeval, Robin Hood and many other TV series, including his own ITV children’s show, Wavelength. He’s worked for every major comics company, including his creator-owned series I Walk With Monsters for The Vault, The Modern Frankenstein for Magma, Saucer Country for Vertigo and This Damned Band for Dark Horse, and runs for Marvel and DC on Batman and Robin, Wolverine and Young Avengers.
He’s the writer of the Lychford rural fantasy novellas from Tor.com Publishing. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his podcast and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his Doctor Who and the Grand Prix Nova and Scribe awards for the audio series Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Firewall. He’s also the winner of the Terrance Dicks Award for lifetime achievement in Doctor Who writing. He’s the co-host of Hammer House of Podcast [which will be succeeded in the new year by Telefantasy Time Jump].
His latest book is the SF novella Rosebud, his latest graphic novel is The Witches of World War II for TKO and his latest comic series is Con and On for Ahoy.
Paul also runs a fantastic weekly newsletter where he shares his current projects, the work of friends and a charmingly personal summary of his week.
In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
My favourite part of Star Wars is, I'm quite surprised to discover, Kieron Gillen's comics run for Marvel, covering Darth Vader and, spinning off from that, his original creation Dr. Aphra. [Editor’s note: That’s her on the Darth Vader 3 cover above!] Kieron closely observed Vader's character journey across the original trilogy, and saw that where he was at the start of Empire was vastly different to where he'd been left at the end of A New Hope. So he set his stories then, with a Vader who's regarded as a charlatan by most Imperial commanders. (And he brings back one of my favourite actors, Don Henderson, to be his boss.)
Dr. Aphra, who first appears during that run, is a completely amoral (except when push really comes to shove) space archaeologist (joining the grand tradition of Bernice Summerfield, River Song, etc.), who Kieron delights in putting up against villains who are worse than she is. This is also the point where we're introduced to the gleefully murderous droids BT-1 and 0-0-0, basically Artoo and Threepio as serial killers. It's a great time, and manages to be very Kieron while also very Star Wars.
In Avebury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom…
And if I may be allowed a prehistoric rather than historical site [Editor’s note: You may! I’ve learnt there really is nothing but an arbitrary difference between pre- and history], I'd name Avebury Stones, the stone circle that surrounds an entire village in Wiltshire and extends in its sub-circles out into the distant fields. It literally dwarfs Stonehenge, gives one a sense of the grandeur of which ancient people were capable and is one of the few such monuments where one can touch the stones. It talks to me of continuity, of the centuries always being around us in the British landscape.
Thank you so much Paul!
These posts come out every other Sunday so subscribe today to discover the next guest and their picks!
Cheers,
Harvey