Being a veteran of the theme park entertainment experience, I'm always on the look out for the latest in days out for all the family. (I'm not really as I'm single and don't get out much but it sounds like a better opening sentence for this post than "I'm a lonely middle-aged man living on his own in the East Midlands...")
Theme parks need themes. So as Disney announces that it plans a 'Star Wars Land', I've looked back into my extensive archives - a box file next to the gas meter under the stairs - and re-discovered this little foreshadowing of the famed Mickey Mouse company's latest plans.
Behold..... BLAKE'S KINGDOM!!
(Inspired by a tweet by Mr. C Hickman.)
Further posts about Terry Nations's Blakes's 7 can be found by clicking on these handy links's.
Blake's 7 - The Virgin New Adventures
The Blake's 7 Dinosaur Book
What's this fascination with dinosaurs?
If there's one thing that comes across in the works of Terry Nation, it's his capacity for research.
You only have to hear the legend of his finding of those curious artefacts in his garden and his tireless attempts to translate what eventually became the so-called 'Dalek Chronicles' from them to realise this.
The BBC obviously understood his skill. In 1979, spurred on by the success of his sci-fi political thriller Blakes 7, they commissioned Terry to write a book that would explain the forthcoming British General Election to its listeners and viewers in words that even a sci-fi fan could understand.
Terry set to work. Using the same talent for coming up with startling facts about Daleks, he put together a short tome.
The BBC decided not to publish it.
A few more charity shop finds...
The past is another country!
Everybody knows that Virgin published a series of original adventures based on the then cancelled TV series Doctor Who back in the nineties. What you may not know is that, buoyed by their success, someone at the publishing decided they could do the same with the BBC's other sci-fi cash cow, Blake's 7. Though it had to be said that the cow had been fully milked by 1992, it didn't stop them commissioning writers to pen a series of novels that took the crew of the Liberator into worlds "too violent and too camp" for TV screens.
Rumour has it that the books were curtailed by Terry Nation himself after he discovered that his signature had not been placed over the Blake's 7 logo as per agreement.
Another rumour says that the books themselves were left to rot in a warehouse until they were sent to Romania to be used as fuel for orphanage boilers. Whilst there is no real proof of this, there is no smoke without fire.
Here's a rare cover proof for the first novel.
(Sorry about the coffee stain, I had to put my mug somewhere whilst I was writing this rubbish.)
13.08.2014 STOP PRESS: Found some more cover proofs for the other three novels. Sorry, no coffee stain on these.
Being a veteran of the theme park entertainment experience, I'm always on the look out for the latest in days out for all the family. (I'm not really as I'm single and don't get out much but it sounds like a better opening sentence for this post than "I'm a lonely middle-aged man living on his own in the East Midlands...") 
