Comprehensive information and links about Andrew Cartmel

Andrew Cartmel is a British science-fiction writer and journalist. Raised in Canada, he took a post-graduate course in Computer Studies and worked on computer-aided design for Unigraphics Solutions in Cambridge, England during the mid-1980s, before he turned more to writing and managed to gain an agent on the strength of two unproduced , having been recommended to the producer John Nathan-Turner by the producer's agent, who had seen some unproduced s Cartmel had written. Cartmel worked on the programme for the next two years, overseeing the final three seasons of its original run on BBC One. He brought in several new writers, taking the series in a new creative direction.

The most lasting legacy of this new direction was the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan", a backstory developed with other writers that restored some of the mystery of the Doctor's background and eventually would explain exactly who he was. Unfortunately, although hints were dropped in the last two seasons, the proposed revelations never materialized on screen as the programme was taken off the airwaves in 1989.

However, even if had not come to an end in 1989 Cartmel would have left the show anyway, as he had already been head-hunted due to his success there to take over the in 1990, Cartmel left the television industry for the rest of the decade. During the 1990s he wrote comic strips for series. This series had used elements of the "masterplan" as part of their overall story arc for the Doctor, particularly the last Seventh Doctor novel , although the appointment was a short one and he left the magazine in 2000. In 2001 he returned to television as the , writing what proved to be the series' final episode at the end of the season.

Recently he has also returned to .

He lives in London.

Common themes in Cartmel's novels include animal rights, the use of animals' perspectives and extended similes to animal behaviour. These elements appear in his three New Adventures,