Doctor Who Companion Piece Mike Tucker

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.First plumbed in England in 2003 by Telos Publishing Ltd 61 Elgar Avenue, Tolworth, Surrey KT5 9JP, England www.telos.co.ukISBN: 1-903889-26-X (standard hardback)Companion Piece © 2003 Mike Tucker & Robert PerryForeword © 2003 Revd Colin MidlaneIcon © 2003 Nathan SkresletISBN: 1-903889-27-8 (deluxe hardback)Companion Piece © 2003 Mike Tucker & Robert PerryForeword C 2003 Revd Colin MidlaneIcon C 2003 Nathan SkresletFrontispiece C 2003 Allan BednarThe moral rights of the author have been asserted'DOCTOR W HO' word mark, device mark and logo are trade marks of the BritishBroadcasting Corporation and are used under licence from BBC W orldwide Limited.Doctor W ho logo C BBC 1996.Certain character names and characters within thisbook appeared in the BBC television series 'DOCTOR W HO.Licensed by BBC W orldwide LimitedFont design by Comicraft.Copyright © 1998 Active Images/Comicraft 430 Colorado Avenue # 302, Santa Monica, Ca 90401 w: www.comicbookfonts.com e: orders@ comicbookfonts.comTypeset in England by TTA Press5 Martins Lane, W itcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, Englandw: www.ttapress.com e: ttapress@ aol.comPrinted in England by Antony Rowe LtdBumpers Farm Industrial Estate, Chippenham, W ilts SN14 6LH1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade orotherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher'sprior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it ispublished and without a similar condition including this condition being imposedon the subsequent purchaser.whirr of K9 in the distance, stumbling over the stones — wretched dog! — andRomana, coming to the rescue.I sink down into the deck-chair, envelopednot by a long scarf but by the heat and swirling sea mist.Clutching the text of Companion Piece, I drift away, into the future and the Doctor's seventh incarnation.Companion Piece intrigues me.Both Doctor Who and 'religion' have always intrigued me.One of the two has never failed to entrance, inspire and enthral me, and give me joy.Some of my favourite Doctor Who stories are still the early historical ones, such as The Aztecs or The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, where religion and politics were driving forces.In some other stories religious groups became too much of a cliché: robed and cowled men (never unrobed women) chanting, sacrificing virgins, their psychic energy awaking ancient, long-dormant alien beings.In Companion Piece religion comes in with a bang! No one expects the Holy Inquisition! And, of course, to make the Church the villain is a good hook.After all, 'bad' perverted religion still sells newspapers, whereas 'good' religion rarely makes the press.To describe this book as a religious story would be an instant turn-off, but Robert Perry and Mike Tucker have succeeded in creating a Roman Catholic culture in the28th century which resonates with popular knowledge of that traditiontoday and builds on our reaction to it.This novella breaks new groundfor Doctor Who because it raises so many explicitly theological questions.Many of these questions are voiced by new companion Cat and areones that most of us ask at some point.In my experience, most people,althoughperhaps uninterested in organised religion, are fascinated bythe ultimate spiritual questions, looking for the meaning or purpose oflife itself.So Cat asks how we can have faith when we see so much evil.W hat happens after death? Is there such a thing as a 'soul'? This maylead us on to other, equally basic questions, such as what it means to be human.Is 'God' interested in other, non-human beings? W hat value has the life of a dolphin or an alien being.or a Cyberman?Books of Christian doctrine (and of other faiths) attempt to provide answers to some of Cat's questions, although I've yet to see a Vatican pronouncement on the status of alien life-forms.Personally, not always sitting comfortably with narrow or rigid 'answers' or definitions, whether of the Protestant or Catholic tradition, I find the title of `Christian agnostic' a respectable one.Faith does imply living with difficult questions, be they theological, ethical or whatever, and often living without all the answers.Christianity (and the ancient Jewish creation stories) seeks to explain the uniqueness of humanity and what it means to be truly human — made in the image of God, with the capacity to relate and to love, to be creative, to share in responsibility and in care for planet Earth.The concept of 'soul' (meaning we are more than just the physical and emotional) almost symbolises the link between creature and Creator and eternal element, and the essence of the person.Angican priest and poet David Scott says (in his Moments of Prayer — SPCK, 1997) that the soul is that part of us which responds to God [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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