The Cat Who Walked Through Time

My first charity anthology entry
Back in 2000, Benton Kelly put together a charity Doctor Who anthology in support of a cat shelter in Cincinnati. There were a lot of these anthologies around at the time, and I'd been turned down by most of them. I remain enormously grateful to Benton for giving me my first real break.

The Cat Who Walked Through Time sold well to fans, and raised a lot of money for its charity. I'm still in touch with Benton, and some of the other authors. I met Matt Marshall quite by chance, several years after the book was published. Plans for The Cat Who Walked Through Time 2 were eventually shelved.

My own story was an absurd tribute to the Pertwee era, with popular companion Jo Grant taking out an alien mothership, Die Hard-style. It was a Bond pastiche, and I think when I first wrote it, I intended it to be the opening sequence for a novel proposal. There was a bit that flagrantly defied the laws of physics, which sparked a bit of controversy in comments sections around the internet, as a few people debated whether it was a "deliberate mistake" or not (it was, and Kate Orman was my editor on it, so if she has 16 year old emails squirrelled away, she can back me up...).

The Cat Who Walked Through Time is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer available for sale, though it pops up on eBay from time to time.

EDIT: Blimey, I googled a bit and found out a copy went for almost $400 on eBay last year (no really, look: http://www.ebay.com/itm/121368934428). The listing claims it's one of the rarest Doctor Who books ever published with only 350 copies ever printed. I... did not know any of this. If you have a copy, you may have a bit of a goldmine on your hands. I do have a copy. I'm currently mentally assessing my sentimental attachment to my first print anthology credit.

7 comments:

  1. Jeremy30 December 2019 at 11:40

    Yikes. I have this as well and am looking to offload my entire WHO book collection (which is a complete collection up to about 2006 including TARGET, VIRGIN NA/MA BBC books etc. Maybe I'm in for a winfall here!.

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    1. Andrew Lawston26 January 2022 at 00:13

      Hullo! It's truly shocking that I missed all the comments on this page! I'd have thought a complete Target/Virgin run would be a pretty big windfall at the best of times - but yes this might be the icing on the cake. If you did offload your collection, I hope that windfall came in for you!

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  2. Mathie Tremas25 February 2020 at 04:32

    I have a copy of my own, sentimental to the tune of my first printed/published drawing being in it. I know I could use the funds, but I will not part with something this precious.

    Who knows? Maybe one day I'll grab a few signatures and make it all that much sweeter for keeping it. <3

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    1. River Song24 January 2022 at 22:10

      I have been searching for a copy of this anthology for such a long time but I’m not rich and can’t afford any copy that has come up for sale �� would anyone be willing to share a scanned copy with me in return for a donation to a cat charity? It’s one of the rare appearances of Wolsey ����❤️

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  3. Andrew Lawston26 January 2022 at 00:17

    Hi Mathie and River, I'm so sorry I missed these comments!

    Mathie, that's awesome, which drawing was yours, I'll have to check it out! It was my first published story too, so I'm hanging on to my copy.

    River, I can't promise anything because it was all such a long time ago and it was such a small print run, but I'll drop Benton a line and see if there's a PDF or a scan or something that they can do.

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    1. River Song26 April 2022 at 00:56

      OMGosh, thank you so much 🐱 I wish it was reprinted for a donation again, so many people want to read it, but there are just no copies to be found (without the cost of an arm and a leg 😿) I really appreciate you asking 🐾❤️

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    2. Andrew Lawston2 May 2022 at 23:19

      Hi - I have asked and the original publisher is right in the middle of a complicated house move right now. Apparently the CDs where the book might be stored are deep in a packing crate. There's also a concern that the book was originally formatted in Microsoft Publisher, so there's a bit of concern about converting the files.

      So there's a chance that the book could be reprinted, but it sounds as though it will be a while, and could take quite a lot of work. The part that we didn't discuss, but which would probably come up at some point, is that the book was published so long ago that they might feel they need to get permission from the various contributors in order to reprint. And there were a lot of contributors... including Mary Tamm who is sadly no longer with us.

      If there's a demand for the book, I hope they will find a way to republish digitally, but it may take some time.

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