3 April 1924: birth of Peter Hawkins, the original voice of the Daleks and Cybermen.
3 April 1929: birth of Michael Hayes, who directed The Androids of Tara (1978), The Armageddon Factor (1979), and City of Death (1979).
3 April 2008: death of Johnny Byrne, who wrote The Keeper of Traken (1981), Arc of Infinity (1983), and Warriors of the Deep (1984).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
3 April 1965: broadcast of “The Knight of Jaffa”, second episode of the story we now call The Crusade. King Richard asks the Doctor and Vicki to join his court, and sends Ian to rescue Barbara, who meantime has been handed over to the evil El Akir.
3 April 1971: broadcast of fourth episode of The Claws of Axos. The Doctor sends Axos – and the Master? – into a perpetual timeloop, but is himself unable to leave Earth.
3 April 2010: broadcast of The Eleventh Hour, first story in Season Five of New Who; first full episode for Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, first appearances of Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams.
The Shining I read during my teenage read-all-the-King phase, and I remember liking it but it hasn’t stuck with me in the way other King books have. The Hunger Games is a good bit of YA with a great lead character and interesting setup, the sequels are not quite as good. The Name of the Wind is a surprisingly readable fantasy doorstop about a hero who is great at everything but mostly not annoyingly so, I hear the sequel tips further into full-blown Mary Sue-ness. The Lies of Locke Lamora is better – a very fun fantasy romp about a pair of thieves.
I would say one thing many of the above have in common is that they are very fast, page-turning reads, which I’d also say is true for Old Man’s War, and this is clearly a help in building a fanbase who vote for your books.