Eighth Doctor Adventures

This article is about the series of novels. For the series of audio dramas, see The Eighth Doctor Adventures (audio drama series).
The Eighth Doctor Adventures
Author Various
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Discipline Science fiction
Publisher BBC Books
Published 1997 - 2005
Media type Print
No. of books 73

The Eighth Doctor Adventures (sometimes abbreviated as EDA or referred to as the EDAs) are a series of spin off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. 73 books were published overall.

Publication history

Between 1991 and 1997, Virgin Publishing had been producing a successful series of spin off novels under the New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges. However, following the Doctor Who television movie which introduced the Eighth Doctor in 1996, the BBC did not renew Virgin Publishing's license to continue publishing Doctor Who material, instead opting to publish their own range. Virgin's last New Adventures novel, The Dying Days by Lance Parkin, featured the Eighth Doctor.

The first BBC Books release was a novelisation of the television movie (considered a standalone work by some), but the run of original Eighth Doctor Adventures began in 1997 with The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks and continued until 2005. It is unclear if the BBC line was originally intended to be a continuation of the continuity established in the New Adventures. However, as many of the writers for the Eighth Doctor Adventures had also written for the Virgin series, many elements from the New Adventures began to appear in both the EDAs and the PDAs (which replaced the Missing Adventures), and such continuity has been broadly maintained.

Virgin had distinguished the New and Missing Adventures with different cover designs. BBC Books, however, did not differentiate their novels featuring the current and past Doctors in this way, although they were listed separately within the books. Fans continued to distinguish the ongoing story of the Eighth Doctor from the more stand-alone adventures of past Doctors, although some plot elements did cross over both ranges.

With the revival of the television series, BBC Books ceased the regular Eighth Doctor Adventures in favour of a new range (the New Series Adventures), featuring characters from the new series. One further novel featuring the Eighth Doctor (Fear Itself) was published under the Past Doctor Adventures line before it too ceased publication.

In addition to the Eighth Doctor Adventures and the Past Doctor Adventures, the BBC also published three short story collections under the title of Short Trips which feature all eight (at the time of publication) Doctors. These were also inherited from Virgin, a version of their Decalog short story collections, and when the BBC ceased publishing them, a licence to continue was sought by Big Finish Productions, who published some for a while. They now continue to publish their own range of Short Trips collections as audios.

These novels all feature the Eighth Doctor, as portrayed in the 1996 television movie by Paul McGann.

List of Eighth Doctor Adventures

# Title Author Featuring Published
1 The Eight DoctorsTerrance Dicks Sam, cameos from many others June 1997
2 Vampire ScienceKate Orman and Jonathan Blum Sam July 1997
3 The BodysnatchersMark Morris Sam August 1997
4 GenocidePaul Leonard Sam, Jo Grant, UNIT September 1997
5 War of the DaleksJohn Peel Sam October 1997
6 Alien BodiesLawrence Miles Sam November 1997
7 KursaalPeter Anghelides Sam January 1998
8 Option LockJustin Richards Sam February 1998
9 Longest DayMichael Collier Sam March 1998
10 Legacy of the DaleksJohn Peel Susan April 1998
11 Dreamstone MoonPaul Leonard None May 1998
12 Seeing IKate Orman and Jonathan Blum Sam June 1998
13 Placebo EffectGary Russell Sam, Stacy, Ssard July 1998
14 Vanderdeken's ChildrenChristopher Bulis Sam August 1998
15 The Scarlet EmpressPaul Magrs Sam, Iris Wildthyme September 1998
16 The Janus ConjunctionTrevor Baxendale Sam October 1998
17 BeltempestJim Mortimore Sam November 1998
18 The Face-EaterSimon Messingham Sam January 1999
19 The Taint (also called Doctor Who and the Taint)Michael Collier Sam, Fitz February 1999
20 DemontageJustin Richards Sam, Fitz March 1999
21 Revolution ManPaul Leonard Sam, Fitz April 1999
22 DominionNick Walters Sam, Fitz May 1999
23 Unnatural HistoryKate Orman and Jonathan Blum Sam, Fitz June 1999
24 Autumn MistDavid A. McIntee Sam, Fitz July 1999
25 Interference: Book One (Shock Tactic)Lawrence Miles Sam, Fitz, Compassion; the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane and K-9 August 1999
26 Interference: Book Two (The Hour of the Geek)Lawrence Miles Sam, Fitz, Compassion; the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane and K-9 August 1999
27 The Blue AngelPaul Magrs and Jeremy Hoad Fitz, Compassion, Iris Wildthyme September 1999
28 The Taking of Planet 5Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham Fitz, Compassion October 1999
29 Frontier WorldsPeter Anghelides Fitz, Compassion November 1999
30 Parallel 59Stephen Cole and Natalie Dallaire Fitz, Compassion January 2000
31 The Shadows of AvalonPaul Cornell Fitz, Compassion, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Romana III February 2000
32 The Fall of YquatineNick Walters Fitz, Compassion March 2000
33 ColdheartTrevor Baxendale Fitz, Compassion April 2000
34 The Space AgeSteve Lyons Fitz, Compassion May 2000
35 The Banquo LegacyAndy Lane and Justin Richards Fitz, Compassion June 2000
36 The Ancestor CellPeter Anghelides and Stephen Cole Fitz, Compassion, Romana III July 2000
37 The BurningJustin Richards none August 2000
38 Casualties of WarSteve Emmerson none September 2000
39 The Turing TestPaul Leonard none October 2000
40 EndgameTerrance Dicks none November 2000
41 Father TimeLance Parkin Debbie Castle, Miranda January 2001
42 Escape VelocityColin Brake Fitz, Anji Kapoor February 2001
43 EarthWorldJacqueline Rayner Fitz, Anji March 2001
44 Vanishing PointStephen Cole Fitz, Anji April 2001
45 Eater of WaspsTrevor Baxendale Fitz, Anji May 2001
46 The Year of Intelligent TigersKate Orman Fitz, Anji June 2001
47 The Slow EmpireDave Stone Fitz, Anji July 2001
48 Dark ProgenySteve Emmerson Fitz, Anji, Sabbath (cameo) August 2001
49 The City of the DeadLloyd Rose Fitz, Anji September 2001
50 Grimm RealitySimon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale Fitz, Anji October 2001
51 The Adventuress of Henrietta StreetLawrence Miles Fitz, Anji, Sabbath November 2001
52 Mad Dogs and EnglishmenPaul Magrs Fitz, Anji, Iris Wildthyme January 2002
53 HopeMark Clapham Fitz, Anji February 2002
54 AnachrophobiaJonathan Morris Fitz, Anji, Sabbath March 2002
55 Trading Futures Lance Parkin Fitz, Anji April 2002
56 The Book of the StillPaul Ebbs Fitz, Anji May 2002
57 The Crooked WorldSteve Lyons Fitz, Anji June 2002
58 History 101Mags L Halliday Fitz, Anji, Sabbath July 2002
59 Camera ObscuraLloyd Rose Fitz, Anji, Sabbath, George Williamson August 2002
60 Time ZeroJustin Richards Fitz, Anji, Trix, Sabbath, George Williamson September 2002
61 The Infinity RaceSimon Messingham Fitz, Anji, Sabbath November 2002
62 The Domino EffectDavid Bishop Fitz, Anji, Trix, Sabbath February 2003
63 Reckless EngineeringNick Walters Fitz, Anji, Trix, Sabbath April 2003
64 The Last ResortPaul Leonard Fitz, Anji, Trix, Sabbath June 2003
65 TimelessStephen Cole Fitz, Anji, Trix, Sabbath August 2003
66 Emotional ChemistrySimon A. Forward Fitz, Trix October 2003
67 Sometime Never...Justin Richards Fitz, Trix, Miranda, Sabbath January 2004
68 HalflifeMark Michalowski Fitz, Trix, Compassion April 2004
69 The Tomorrow Windows Jonathan Morris Fitz, Trix June 2004
70 The Sleep of ReasonMartin Day Fitz, Trix August 2004
71 The Deadstone MemorialTrevor Baxendale Fitz, Trix October 2004
72 To the SlaughterStephen Cole Fitz, Trix January 2005
73 The Gallifrey ChroniclesLance Parkin Fitz and Trix with cameos by Compassion, Anji, Miranda, Romana III and K-9 June 2005

Plot overview

Following the events of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, the Eighth Doctor picks up a British teenager from 1997, Samantha "Sam" Jones, and later a disaffected drifter in his late twenties named Fitz Kreiner from 1963.[1] During their adventures, the threesome tangle with the Faction Paradox, a renegade voodoo cult of time travellers who believed in creating time paradoxes and altering history. They also meet the Doctor's old friend Iris Wildthyme, a Time Lady from Gallifrey who travels in a TARDIS shaped like a London double-decker bus.

When Sam leaves the TARDIS, the Doctor and Fitz are joined by Compassion, a member of a once-human race called the Remote who slowly begins a conversion process into a living TARDIS.[2] The Time Lords, led by his old companion Romana, now President of the High Council, anxious to get their hands on this new TARDIS technology, pursue the Doctor, who loses his own TARDIS and continues to travel using Compassion.[3] The conflict with Faction Paradox comes to a climax on Gallifrey,[4] where the Doctor discovers his TARDIS in orbit around the planet, transformed into a giant structure of living bone by the Faction. The Doctor, faced with an impossible decision, destroys the Faction and causes major damage to the timeline by apparently wiping his homeworld and his people from history.

Much later, it is revealed that four Time Lords had survived the catastrophe: The Doctor, the Master,[5] Iris Wildthyme[6][7] and Marnal.[8]

Meanwhile, having rescued the Doctor from near-death, Compassion leaves the now-amnesiac Doctor on Earth in the late 19th century while she drops Fitz off in 2001 to await the long process of the Doctor's — and the now-embryonic TARDIS's — recovery. She then departs for parts unknown.[4] The Doctor spends the next hundred years travelling the world and living through its history, eventually adopting Miranda,[6] a young girl with two hearts. Miranda leaves the Doctor to face her own destiny in the far future, and the Doctor goes on to meet Fitz as arranged, thanks to a note Compassion slipped into his pocket a century before. Following that, the two are joined by Anji Kapoor, a London stock trader and the three leave Earth in the TARDIS.[9]

Much later, while on Earth in the eighteenth century, the Doctor, Fitz and Anji encounter Sabbath, a Secret Service operative who is aware of time travel and becomes the Doctor's personal nemesis. The Doctor loses his second heart, which was slowly killing him as it was his only link to his now-forgotten homeworld. Sabbath takes the heart and implants it in his own body, tying him and the Doctor together.[5] Through several more adventures, the Doctor and his companions encounter Sabbath again and Trix MacMillan stows away aboard the TARDIS.[10]

Sabbath subsequently loses the Doctor's time-sensitive heart and the Doctor grows a new one.[11] The Doctor also begins to recover fragments of his memory, and discovers that Sabbath is working for a group called the Council of Eight. The Council wants to collapse the alternate timelines of the multiverse into one, manageable timeline. To them, the Doctor is a rogue element that needs to be controlled or eliminated. They also begin to eliminate his previous companions from time. Trix comes out of hiding, joining the crew, and Anji leaves the TARDIS.[12] Sabbath eventually realises that the Council is not human and turns on his masters. Miranda, now a grown woman with a daughter, also returns to help her adopted father defeat the Council, but both she and Sabbath die in the process.[13]

Eventually, the Doctor returns to Earth in 2005 and discovers that another Time Lord, Marnal, has also survived the destruction of Gallifrey.[8] Marnal, who also claims to be the original owner of the Doctor's TARDIS, blames the Doctor for the cataclysm, and takes him and the TARDIS captive while the insectoid alien Vore invade the Earth. After a cold fusion explosion guts the interior of the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that K-9 Mark II had been aboard all along, with orders from Lady President Romana of Gallifrey to kill him. However, K-9 pauses once it scans the Doctor's mind and discovers the reason why the Doctor has lost his memory.

Just prior to destroying Gallifrey, the Doctor (with Compassion's help) downloaded the contents of the Gallifreyan Matrix — the massive computer network containing the mental traces of every Time Lord living and dead — into his brain, with his own memories suppressed to make room for the data. Gallifrey had not actually been erased from history, but an event horizon in relative time prevented anyone from Gallifrey's past to travel beyond Gallifrey's destruction, and vice versa. Both the planet and the Time Lords can be restored, along with the Doctor's memory, if a sufficiently sophisticated computer could be found to reconstruct them. Before that can be done, however, there is the problem of the Vore to contend with.

At novel's end, the Doctor, Trix and Fitz are set to confront the Vore invasion force. The restoration of Gallifrey, in time for its second destruction in the Time War prior to the events of the 2005 series has yet to be chronicled.

The Eighth Doctor Adventures line ends with The Gallifrey Chronicles. Although one further novel featuring the Eighth Doctor (Fear Itself by Nick Wallace) was published under the Past Doctor Adventures line before BBC Books decided to retire the PDAs as well, that book takes place prior to Timeless. It remains to be seen if the events of The Gallifrey Chronicles will be followed up by any future novel.

Companions

The Doctor has a series of new companions, who never appeared in the television programme. They are:

Recurring characters

References

  1. ↑ The Taint
  2. ↑ Interference: Book Two
  3. ↑ The Shadows of Avalon
  4. 1 2 The Ancestor Cell
  5. 1 2 The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
  6. 1 2 Father Time
  7. ↑ Mad Dogs and Englishmen
  8. 1 2 The Gallifrey Chronicles
  9. ↑ Escape Velocity
  10. ↑ Time Zero
  11. ↑ Camera Obscura
  12. ↑ Timeless
  13. ↑ Sometime Never...

See also

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