Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants is an unofficial guide to the travels and experiences of the companions of each of the eleven incarnations of the Doctor. Written by a true fan, Andy Frankham-Allen provides an in-depth account of each character's struggles, experiences and relationships as he outlines their significance in the TV series as well as other Doctor Who media.The book also features a foreword by Gary Russell and afterword by David J Howe.

Welsh-born Andy Frankham-Allen's passion for writing began with a love of Doctor Who. He's been writing since as far back as he can remember, and, although unsuccessful, he wrote a Doctor Who novel for BBC Books in 1996 after an accident caused him to out of work for four months. Following that writing fell back into a hobby until 2001 when he began an ongoing fan-fiction series called Doctor Who: The Legacy, which carried on until 2006. This led to professional Doctor Who short stories in Big Finish's anthology series, Short Trips, from 2004 to 2009. During which time he wrote an audio drama for Noise Monster's Space 1889 series. In 2007 he created and co-edited a new eZine called Pantechnicon, for which he also wrote short stories in interviews. In Spring of 2011 Hirst published the first book in his cross-genre Garden Saga, Seeker. He has several stories in the pipeline for release over the coming months (both shorts and novellas), and is currently researching the second part of The Garden Saga. When he's not writing, which isn't very often, he can be found in a little glass box in Cardiff selling coffee and pasties (and making copious amounts of notes for his various writing projects).