Ben Aaronovitch


Ben Dylan Aaronovitch is an English author and screenwriter. He is the author of the Rivers of London series of novels. He also wrote two Doctor Who serials in the late 1980s and spin-off novels from Doctor Who and Blake's 7.

Biography

Family

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.

''Doctor Who'' and television work

Aaronovitch wrote two Doctor Who serials, Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield, for BBC television, and also the novelization of the former.
He wrote one episode for Casualty and was then a regular writer on 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.

Rivers of London

Aaronovitch lives in Wimbledon and is working on Rivers of London, a series of urban fantasy police procedural novels featuring Peter Grant, a Police Constable and apprentice wizard.

Television

''Doctor Who''

Knight Fall
In May 1987, Aaronovitch submitted “Knight Fall” to the Doctor Who production office for Season 25. The story concerned about privatization. Script editor Andrew Cartmel liked the story ideas, but felt that the story was considered inappropriate, and has too many supporting characters. Aaronovitch would write Remembrance of the Daleks as the story opener Season 25.
Transit
After failing to feature Aaronovitch’s “Knight Fall” storyline to production, Aaronovitch submitted a story on June 1987, entitled as “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. 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.
Earth Aid
During Summer of 1988, Aaronovitch submitted a three-part adventure story for Doctor Who’s 27th Season, and was called ”Earth Aid”. 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 on September 1989, The BBC arguably would cancel Doctor Who after its 26 Season, due to lower ratings, and hatred from audiences. In July 2011, Big Finish Productions released an audio adaptation of Earth Aid, by Aaronovitch and Cartmel.

Audio dramas

Blake's 7

Doctor Who

Novelisations

Rivers of London – Body Work