Kit pedler

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Christopher Magnus Howard Pedler (born June 11, 1927 in Hampstead , London ; died May 27, 1981 in Doddington , Kent ) was a British medic, screenplay and science fiction writer . He worked extensively with Gerry Davis , particularly on numerous episodes of the British SF television series Doctor Who .

Life

Pedler was the son of the doctor Hubert Pedler and the painter Mary Pedler, née Johnson. In 1953 he received his bachelor's degree from Westminster Hospital Medical School , received his PhD from the University of London and passed the examination of the Royal College of Pathologists . After his training he worked as a doctor and surgeon in hospitals in London and Greenwich . He was then a university professor and for 12 years head of the Department of Anatomy and Electron Microscopy at the University of London, which he founded . He studied the anatomy of the eye and the retina and wrote 38 scientific articles on the subject. In 1971 he left and from then on worked as a freelance writer.

From the mid-1960s he was the unofficial scientific advisor Pedler on the television series Doctor Who . Together with Davis he was story editor in seasons 4 to 6 (1966–1968, Second Doctor ), where they introduce the Cybermen in the story line The Tenth Planet , a genre of Doctor Who opponents now and again used . He also conceived the series Doomwatch with Davis , for which he also wrote scripts that dealt with various ecological dangers and disasters, including climate change . Pedler also wrote a non-fiction book on the subject of ecology.

From 1970 Pedler began writing science fiction stories. He published several short stories and, together with Davis, four novels, three of which were also translated into German. The first of these novels, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater (1971, German as Die Plastikfresser ), was developed from the first Doomwatch episode, in which a microorganism developed to break down plastic is released from a laboratory and now begins to eat plastic in an uncontrolled manner , with disastrous results. The following novels are similarly dystopian and catastrophic: in Brainrack (1974) errors at the human-computer interface lead to a nuclear reactor meltdown , Doomwatch: The World in Danger (1975) brings together three series episodes for a fix-up and in The Dynostar Menace (1975) threatens to run a fusion reactor on the Dynostar space station out of control and destroy the earth's ozone layer .

Together with Tony Bastable, Pedler presented the television series Mind over Matter , produced in 1981 by Thames / ITV , in which paranormal , extra-physical and other inexplicable phenomena were examined, and wrote the scripts for the seven episodes. In 1981 he published the corresponding book Mind Over Matter: A Scientist's View of the Paranormal . In New Scientist , the series was criticized as unscientific and misleading.

In 1949 Pedler married Una Freeston. The marriage resulted in three sons and a daughter. Pedler died in 1981 at the age of 53. He was buried in the All Saints Churchyard in Graveney , Swale Borough , Kent.

bibliography

Doctor Who
  • The Tomb of the Cybermen (1989, with Gerry Davis)
  • Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet (2006, audio version)
  • Doctor Who: The Invasion (2006, audio version)
Novels
  • Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater (1971, with Gerry Davis)
    • German: Die Plastikfresser. Heyne SF&F # 3382, 1974, ISBN 3-453-30259-1 . Also as: Mutant 59: The plastic eater. Heyne (Library of Science Fiction Literature # 60), 1974, ISBN 3-453-31289-9 .
  • Brainrack (1974, with Gerry Davis)
  • Doomwatch: The World in Danger (1975, with Gerry Davis)
  • The Dynostar Menace (1975, with Gerry Davis)
Short stories
  • Image in Capsule (1970)
  • The Long-Term Residents (1971)
    • German: The permanent guests. In: Richard Davis (ed.): Der Totenvogel. Pabel (Vampire Paperback # 24), 1975.
  • Terence and the Unholy Father (1972)
  • White Caucasian Male (1973)
Non-fiction
  • The Quest for Gaia: A Book of Changes (1979)
  • Mind Over Matter: A Scientist's View of the Paranormal (1981)

Filmography

Doctor Who (TV series, with Gerry Davis)
  • The War Machines (1966)
  • The Tenth Planet (1966)
  • The Moonbase (1967)
  • The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)
  • The Wheel in Space (1968)
  • The Invasion (1968)
Doomwatch (TV series, with Gerry Davis)
  • Survival Code (1970)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Plastic Eaters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  2. ^ Georgina Ferrey: Mind over Matter. In: New Scientist. May 21, 1981, limited preview in Google Book Search.
personal data
SURNAME Pedler, kit
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pedler, Christopher Magnus Howard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British medic, parapsychologist and science fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Hampstead , London
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1981
Place of death Doddington , Kent