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Stephen Cole (born 1971)[1] (also credited as Steve Cole, Tara Samms and Paul Grice) is an English author of children's books and science fiction. He was also in charge of BBC Worldwide's merchandising of the BBC Television series Doctor Who between 1997 and 1999 and as executive producer on the Big Finish Productions range of Doctor Who audio dramas.
In 2013, Ian Fleming Publications announced that Cole would continue the Young Bond series first penned by Charlie Higson, with the addition of four new books to the series.[2] The first of these, Shoot to Kill, was published in the UK in November 2014, where Cole is credited as 'Steve Cole'.[3]
Cole was brought up in rural Bedfordshire and attended the University of East Anglia between 1989 and 1992, where he studied English literature and film studies, graduating with first class honours. After a brief time working in local radio with BBC Radio Bedfordshire (now Three Counties) he became a junior assistant at BBC Children's Magazines in 1993, and by 1996 he was Group Editor of Pre-School Magazines. In the summer of 1996 he wrote his first children's books: Cars on Mars, Alien Olympics, School on Saturn and Mucky Martians, a collection of pop-up poetry books published by Levinson the following year.[4]
At the time, BBC Books had received rights to publish Doctor Who fiction after the release of the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie – and that a new range of Eighth Doctor Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures would be commissioned. Cole applied for the role of Project Editor of Sci-Fi Titles as he was a fan of the programme, and was successful.
After the first six books in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range were released, Cole also edited the BBC's Short Trips short story collections, for which he began to write under the pseudonyms of "Tara Samms" and "Paul Grice". He also wrote two novels under his friend's name, Michael Collier.[5] He has since published other work under these pen-names, including the 2003 Doctor Who novella Frayed, part of a series published by Telos Publishing Ltd. He has also written several short stories and audio plays for Big Finish Productions.
In addition to the books he also commissioned and abridged stories for inclusion on various Doctor Who talking books and selected TV stories to be released on home video.
Worn down by the grind of commissioning and editing 22 80,000 word novels per year as well as producing nonfiction titles, audiobooks and videos, Cole shifted roles in the Children's department to become Special Development Editor in 1999, commissioning and writing children's books tying into series such as Walking With Dinosaurs and Microsoap. He retained responsibility for certain of the Doctor Who novels on a freelance basis before passing them to the care of author-editor Justin Richards.
Leaving BBC Worldwide in October 1999 Cole moved to be Managing Editor for Ladybird Books. But while he continued to write TV and film tie-ins he missed involvement with fiction. After a stint as senior editor at Simon and Schuster Children's Books (where he commissioned books from Who writers Paul Magrs and Justin Richards) he went freelance in 2002, editing fewer books in favour of writing more of his own. Cole's first original fiction was a series called The Wereling,[6] a trilogy of young adult horror books published by Bloomsbury. He followed this up with a further trilogy detailing the adventures of misfit criminal teen genius Jonah Wish and his friends – Thieves Like Us, Thieves Till We Die (also released as The Aztec Code) and The Bloodline Cipher. He has also written several more Doctor Who titles, including four tying in with the new series.
Cole's most successful titles to date are the Astrosaurs children's books, published under the name Steve Cole. The first two titles were published 3 February 2005. So far there are 22 Astrosaurs books available including a special edition book written especially for World Book Day 2007 (published 1 March 2007). Astrosaurs was followed up by the series Cows In Action (first two titles published 3 May 2007). There are twelve Cows In Action books published to date. The Astrosaurs spin-off series, Astrosaurs Academy, began in May 2008 and has 8 books to date.