When I handed in my first draft of The Black Archive #58: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, I was told that Obverse supremo Stuart Douglas would be editing the book and that he would be in touch to discuss the practicalities. I hadn’t actually spoken to Stuart for a good while, so it was nice to catch up, but also very well timed: he was just finalising an agreement with Stephen Wyatt about an Obverse short story collection based on his 1987 Doctor Who episode, Paradise Towers.
Stuart was just at the point of needing some story ideas to pass to Stephen for consideration, and asked if I would be interested in submitting one. By another coincidence, I had just finished rewatching Paradise Towers and my fond memories of it hadn’t been dented at all. I knew it was a world with plenty of scope for me to tell a story in, and one I’d be quite pleased to spend some time in. After agreeing some ground rules - some ideas were off limits as Stephen was planning to use them in his own story for the collection - I said I’d go away and see what I could come up with.