Ben Aaronovitch

Ben Dylan Aaronovitch (born 22 February 1964) is an English author and screenwriter.

He is the author of the series of novels Rivers of London.

He also wrote two Doctor Who serials in the late 1980s and spin-off novels from Doctor Who and Blake's 7.

Born in Camden, Aaronovitch is the son of the economist Sam Aaronovitch who was a senior member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the younger brother of actor Owen Aaronovitch and journalist David Aaronovitch.

He attended Holloway School.

Aaronovitch lives in Wimbledon.

In May 1987, Aaronovitch submitted “Knight Fall” to the Doctor Who production office for Season 25.

The story concerned privatization.

Script editor Andrew Cartmel liked the story ideas, but felt that the script was inappropriate for the series and had too many supporting characters.

Transit

After failing to feature Aaronovitch's “Knight Fall” storyline to production, Aaronovitch submitted a story in June 1987, entitled Transit.

The story would see the Doctor and Ace in the future, land in a metro station, and discover transportation portals that could lead any body throughout the Solar System, but one of the portals leads a gate way to hell.

Aaronovitch wrote two Doctor Who serials, Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) and Battlefield (1989), for BBC television, and also the novelization of the former.

During Summer of 1988, Aaronovitch submitted a three-part adventure story for Doctor Who’s 27th Season (which never came to fruition), and was called ”Bad Destination”.

The story would feature The Doctor seeing Ace as a captain of a hospital spaceship which is being under attack by the Metatraxi.

The story, however, was abandoned when, in September 1989, the BBC cancelled Doctor Who after its 26 Season, due to declining audiences.

He wrote one episode for Casualty (1990) and was then a regular writer on the science fiction series Jupiter Moon.

He subsequently wrote or co-wrote three Doctor Who spin-off novels in the Virgin Publishing New Adventures range; he created the character Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart who became a semi-regular in the New Adventures.

He has also written a novel and several short stories published by Big Finish Productions featuring the character of Bernice Summerfield, who was originally developed in the New Adventures.

He also co-wrote a Doctor Who audio drama for Big Finish, and has written a number of Blake's 7 spin-off audio dramas.

Knight Fall

Even though it is unexplainable to how Aaronovitch's scripts of “Transit” never came to fruition, he would adapt the story as a book for Virgin New Adventures series in December 1992.

Bad Destination

In July 2011, Big Finish Productions released the story as Earth Aid, by Aaronovitch and Cartmel.

The short stories below are published in 'Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection'.