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Lethbridge-Stewart The Havoc Files 5
Available to order from www.candy-jar-store.co.uk
2025 is the fifteenth anniversary of Candy Jar Books, and the tenth anniversary of the Lethbridge-Stewart range. To honour that, Candy Jar is pleased to announce two new volumes in their popular HAVOC Files range: The HAVOC Files 5 and The HAVOC Files 6.
UNIT range editor Tim Gambrell explains how this came about: “As always with these things, there’s quite a story behind it. Earlier this year, out of the blue, Shaun Russell (Head of Publishing) suggested we should do another HAVOC Files book to celebrate the upcoming anniversaries. I suggested approaching authors from the Lethbridge-Stewart range to see if any of them were interested in telling stories connected in some way with their previous novels. Side-steps or continuations, that sort of thing.”
Tim goes on: “The take-up was huge! I realised pretty early on that if everyone delivered, we’d have far more than we needed for one standard volume. We’ve ended up with enough great stories for two standard volumes, from everything that was submitted.”
Shaun had an idea to give the books an extra dimension, as well. Each of them would have a short, exclusive comic strip, as a kind of intermission halfway through. There’s a Lucy Wilson comic strip in The HAVOC Files 5, and the Dominators and Quarks in The HAVOC Files 6, being the characters that lend themselves most readily to the comic strip medium, with some superb artwork from Steve Beckett and Martin Baines, respectively.
Tim takes up the story once again: “Although all the writers I approached wanted to be involved, not everyone had the time to produce something new. A few of our contributors had written stories for previous Lethbridge-Stewart collections that, for one reason or another, had never come to fruition. These were good tales, and thankfully, we were able to give them a home. Linking some of the stories back to previous collections, such as Lineage, or The Laughing Gnome, was still in the spirit of celebrating the range, so there was no issue about fitting them in.”
“I know that regular Lethbridge-Stewart readers like to know where all the stories fit in,” Tim explains. “I wasn’t about to go messing about with the timeline. Andy Frankham-Allen worked out for the range, so I’ve stated where each story fits, or when it’s set, for those readers to whom it matters. I’ve also put the stories pretty much in chronological order across the two volumes – although I think the final story in The HAVOC Files 5 and the first story in The HAVOC Files 6 ended up transposed because they seemed to fit better that way. We start off in 1897 in HAVOC Files 5 and end up in 2025 at the end of The HAVOC Files 6.’
As well as there being the comic strips inside, Shaun also wanted the cover artwork to be special for these two complementary books. Adrian Salmon has provided distinctive cover art for several of the previous HAVOC Files volumes, and he was the natural choice to approach again. Between Adrian, Shaun, and Tim, they came up with the idea for the covers to work on their own, but also for them to create a bigger image when placed alongside each other. The theme is Heroes and Villains, with one book cover featuring heroes and the other featuring villains.
The HAVOC Files 5 and The HAVOC Files 6 feature stories and artwork by Baz Greenland, Tim Gambrell, Gareth Madgwick, Tom Dexter, John Peel, Philip Bates, Steve Beckett, Simon A Forward, Robert Mammone, George Ivanoff, Iain McLaughlin, Jonathan Macho, Andrew Allen, Sharon Bidwell, Nick Walters, Martin Baines, Aly Leeds, SJ Groenewegen, Chris Lynch, James Middleditch, and Adrian Salmon.
Both books will be available to buy exclusively from Candy Jar Books, on a limited print run, and will be a welcome addition to any collection.
The HAVOC Files
Take a trip down memory lane with ten new stories from Candy Jar’s Doctor Who spin-off ranges.
Join the Brigadier’s ancestors, Alistair and Lillian, as they dance the night away in Barcelona. Find out why Farmer Dury’s hens wouldn’t lay, courtesy of the Bledoe Cadets, and see what Professor Travers was up to in Wales during WWII with the Fourth Operational Corps.
We once again enter the Analysis Bureau, before the Fifth Operational Corps takes us on a series of adventures linked to some of the most popular Lethbridge-Stewart novels, pausing only to watch Lucy Wilson attempt to tidy her room in an exclusive new comic strip. The collection finishes up with UNIT investigating mass hallucinations in Scotland.
There’s something here for everyone!
The HAVOC Files 5 is the first of two anniversary collections celebrating fifteen years of Candy Jar Books and ten years of the Lethbridge-Stewart range.
The HAVOC Files 6
Take a trip down memory lane with eight new stories from Candy Jar’s Doctor Who spin-off ranges.
Join Bill Bishop as the Laughing Gnome plants him outside International Electromatics. Discover what Anne Travers finds lurking beneath the Museum of Scotland. The Brigadier faces old friends and foes with new colleagues at UNIT, before the Dominators and Quarks provide a brief intermission in an exclusive new comic strip.
The collection then closes with several stories linked to some of the most popular Lethbridge-Stewart novels, bringing the adventures right up-to-date in 2025.
There’s something here for everyone!
The HAVOC Files 6 is the second of two anniversary collections celebrating fifteen years of Candy Jar Books and ten years of the Lethbridge-Stewart range.
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