Big Finish Short Trips
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The Big Finish Short Trips are a collection of short story anthologies published by Big Finish Productions based on the BBC Television series Doctor Who, beginning with the collection Short Trips: Zodiac in December 2002. The Short Trips name was inherited from similar collections published by the BBC, who decided in March 2000 that is was no longer financially viable to produce collections of short stories. Big Finish Productions negotiated a licence to continue producing these collections, publishing them in smaller runs and in hardback, thus allowing for a higher cover price and increased profit margins on the BBC collections.
Big Finish's licence with BBC Enterprises only allows them to use copyrighted material from the "classic" Doctor Who series (1963– 1989 and 1996), which means that their stories can only feature the first eight Doctors and their companions. There are also difficulties in using the Eighth Doctor's companions Grace Holloway and Chang Lee as the copyright to these is own by Universal Television. At present, Big Finish cannot produce any material using the Ninth or Tenth Doctors or make any other references to the new Russell T. Davies-headed series in their works.
[edit] The books
The Big Finish Short Trips volumes are produced in a slightly different manner from their BBC predecessors: instead of being centrally produced, Big Finish commissions editors for the volumes, who in turn commission stories from writers for the themed collections. Because of this, each volume is produced depending on the working methods of its editor – some editors commission stories on invitation from writers, whilst others welcome unsolicited submission of stories.
Each collection is conceived around a single theme, with the individual stories exploring that theme:
| Title | Editor | Published | Theme/Concept |
| Short Trips: Zodiac | Jacqueline Rayner | December 2002 | The signs of the Zodiac |
| Short Trips: Companions | Jacqueline Rayner | March 2003 | The Doctor's companions |
| Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors | John Binns | June 2003 | Horror |
| Short Trips: The Muses | Jacqueline Rayner | September 2003 | The Nine Muses |
| Short Trips: Steel Skies | John Binns | December 2003 | Confined environments |
| Short Trips: Past Tense | Ian Farrington | April 2004 | Historical settings |
| Short Trips: Life Science | John Binns | June 2004 | The nature of life |
| Short Trips: Repercussions | Gary Russell | June 2004 | Unforeseen consequences |
| Short Trips: Monsters | Ian Farrington | August 2004 | Monsters |
| Short Trips: 2040 | John Binns | October 2004 | The year 2040 |
| Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury | Paul Cornell | December 2004 | Christmas |
| Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins | David Bailey | March 2005 | The Seven Deadly Sins |
| Short Trips: A Day in the Life | Ian Farrington | June 2005 | The hours of the day |
| Short Trips: The Solar System | Gary Russell | September 2005 | The nine planets of Earth's solar system |
| Short Trips: The History of Christmas | Simon Guerrier | December 2005 | Christmas past, present and future |
| Short Trips: Farewells | Jacqueline Rayner | March 2006 | Death and other kinds of loss |
| Short Trips: The Centenarian | Ian Farrington | July 2006 | Edward Grainger |
| Short Trips: Time Signature | Simon Guerrier | September 2006 | Music, time and consequences |
| Short Trips: Dalek Empire | Nicholas Briggs with Simon Guerrier | December 2006 | The Dalek Empire series |
| Short Trips: Destination Prague | Steven Savile | May 2007 | The city of Prague |
| Short Trips: Snapshots | Joseph Lidster | June 2007 | |
| Short Trips: Defining Patterns | Ian Farrington | September 2007 | |
| Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas | Cavan Scott & Mark Wright | December 2007 | |
| Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership | Keith R.A. DeCandido | March 2008 |
The collections have mixed established Doctor Who writers from the television series, such as Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Terrance Dicks, Glen McCoy, Marc Platt, Helen Raynor and Eric Saward and writers who made their name in other Doctor Who spin-off ranges, such as Paul Cornell, Joseph Lidster, Philip Purser-Hallard, Gareth Roberts, Gary Russell, Robert Shearman, Lance Parkin and Kate Orman, and writers from other literary spheres, including Dan Abnett, Jonathan Clements, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Brian Dooley, Nev Fountain, Lizzie Hopley, Todd McCaffrey, Juliet E. McKenna, Paul Magrs, Gary Owen, Stel Pavlou, Steven A. Roman, Steven Savile, James Swallow, Richard Dinnick and Matthew Sweet.
