The New Adventures were a series of original novels from Virgin Publishing that featured the adventures of the Seventh Doctor and Ace after the final season of the television series, broadcast in 1989.
The series began with the four-part Timewyrm series and was initially published bi-monthly.
A monthly release schedule began in February 1993, and in July 1994 the company started publishing a second range of books which featured the adventures of the first six Doctors.
The production of the US/UK TV movie starring Paul McGann in 1996 saw the BBC issuing a novelisation and script book based on the story, and it was soon announced that Virgin's licence to produce Doctor Who fiction would not be renewed when it expired in May 1997. As a consequence the final book to feature the Seventh Doctor was Marc Platt's Lungbarrow, published in March 1997. Virgin's only novel to feature the Eighth Doctor was published in the April, pre-empting the BBC's forthcoming range of Eighth Doctor Adventures books by two months.
Despite the Doctor Who licence reverting to the BBC, Virgin's range of New Adventures was to continue until December 1999, with the focus switched to Bernice Summerfield, a character who had been introduced in Paul Cornell's Doctor Who: Love and War way back in October 1992, and who had been a regular traveller in the TARDIS right up to 1996.
The adventures of Bernice Summerfield subsequently moved to Big Finish Productions who have been producing a regular series of books and audio dramas ever since.
The series began with the four-part Timewyrm series and was initially published bi-monthly.
A monthly release schedule began in February 1993, and in July 1994 the company started publishing a second range of books which featured the adventures of the first six Doctors.
The production of the US/UK TV movie starring Paul McGann in 1996 saw the BBC issuing a novelisation and script book based on the story, and it was soon announced that Virgin's licence to produce Doctor Who fiction would not be renewed when it expired in May 1997. As a consequence the final book to feature the Seventh Doctor was Marc Platt's Lungbarrow, published in March 1997. Virgin's only novel to feature the Eighth Doctor was published in the April, pre-empting the BBC's forthcoming range of Eighth Doctor Adventures books by two months.
Despite the Doctor Who licence reverting to the BBC, Virgin's range of New Adventures was to continue until December 1999, with the focus switched to Bernice Summerfield, a character who had been introduced in Paul Cornell's Doctor Who: Love and War way back in October 1992, and who had been a regular traveller in the TARDIS right up to 1996.
The adventures of Bernice Summerfield subsequently moved to Big Finish Productions who have been producing a regular series of books and audio dramas ever since.
Doctor Who — Timewyrm: Genesys
by John Peel
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- June 1991
Back Cover Blurb
Mesopotamia — the cradle of civilisation. In the fertile crescent of land on the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, mankind is turning from hunter-gatherer into farmer, and from farmer into city-dweller.
Gilgamesh, the first hero-king, rules the city of Urak. An equally legendary figure arrives in a police telephone box: the TARDIS has brought the Doctor and his companion Ace to witness the first steps of mankind's long progress to the stars.
And from somewhere amid those distant points of light an evil sentience has tumbled. To her followers in the city of Kish she is known as Ishtar the goddess; to the Doctor's forebears on ancient Gallifrey she was a mystical terror — the Timewyrm.
Mesopotamia — the cradle of civilisation. In the fertile crescent of land on the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, mankind is turning from hunter-gatherer into farmer, and from farmer into city-dweller.
Gilgamesh, the first hero-king, rules the city of Urak. An equally legendary figure arrives in a police telephone box: the TARDIS has brought the Doctor and his companion Ace to witness the first steps of mankind's long progress to the stars.
And from somewhere amid those distant points of light an evil sentience has tumbled. To her followers in the city of Kish she is known as Ishtar the goddess; to the Doctor's forebears on ancient Gallifrey she was a mystical terror — the Timewyrm.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Not counting the two books in the Companions of Doctor Who series (neither of which featured the Doctor), Timewyrm: Genesys was the first original Doctor Who novel to be published, and was the first novel in a four book series.
- A five-page prologue to Genesys, written by John Peel and accompanied by illustrations from Paul Vyse, was published in Issue 175 (10th July 1991) of Doctor Who Magazine.
- Genesys included a preface by Peter Darvill-Evans, who was then the editor of the New Adventures range. The book also included a foreword by Sophie Aldred, who had played Ace in the television series between 1987 and 1989.
Doctor Who — Timewyrm: Exodus
by Terrance Dicks
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- August 1991
Back Cover Blurb
The pursuit of the Timewyrm leads the Doctor and Ace to London, 1951, and the Festival of Britain — a celebration of the achievements of this small country, this insignificant corner of the glorious Thousand Year Reich.
Someone — or something — has been interfering with the time lines, and in order to investigate, the Doctor travels further back in time to the very dawn of the Nazi evil. In the heart of the Germany of the Third Reich, he finds that this little band of thugs and misfits did not take over half the world unaided.
History must be restored to its proper course, and in his attempts to repair the time lines, the Doctor faces the most terrible dilemma he has ever faced...
The pursuit of the Timewyrm leads the Doctor and Ace to London, 1951, and the Festival of Britain — a celebration of the achievements of this small country, this insignificant corner of the glorious Thousand Year Reich.
Someone — or something — has been interfering with the time lines, and in order to investigate, the Doctor travels further back in time to the very dawn of the Nazi evil. In the heart of the Germany of the Third Reich, he finds that this little band of thugs and misfits did not take over half the world unaided.
History must be restored to its proper course, and in his attempts to repair the time lines, the Doctor faces the most terrible dilemma he has ever faced...
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The War Chief
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The War Chief
Notes
- Terrance Dicks was the script editor on Doctor Who between 1968 and 1975, as well as being the writer or co-writer of six stories for the television series. During the 1970s and 1980s he novelised over seventy of the television stories for Target Books, with Timewyrm: Exodus being his first original Doctor Who novel.
- Despite the time travelling nature of the series, and the obviously Nazi-inspired characters that tended to crop up on a regular basis (see Genesis of the Daleks for the most blatant examples) Doctor Who had managed to stear clear of setting a story during the time of World War Two until The Curse of Fenric, during the final year of the television series in 1989.
Later visits to the time period would occur during Lance Parkin's Just War, and in the two-part television story The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances.
Unsurprisingly, as part of Exodus Terrance Dicks included a character from the series' past, in this case the War Chief from the 1969 television story The War Games, which he had co-written with Malcolm Hulke. - Other books based on UK telefantasy series in which Adolf Hitler appears include The Avengers: Heil Harris!, The New Avengers: The Eagle's Nest, The Tomorrow People in The Lost Gods with Hitler's Last Secret and the Thargon Menace and Doctor Who: The Shadow in the Glass. Of these, precisely none of them is set during World War Two — all of the others include plots in which Hitler survived the war in some way.
Doctor Who — Timewyrm: Apocalypse
by Nigel Robinson
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- October 1991
Back Cover Blurb
The end of the Universe. The end of everything.
The TARDIS has tracked the Timewyrm to the end of the Universe and the end of time — to the lush planet Kirith, a paradise inhabited by a physically perfect race.
Ace is not impressed. Kirith has all the appeal of a wet weekend in Margate, and its inhabitants look like third-rate Aussie soap stars.
The Doctor's troubled, too: if the Timewyrm is here, why can't he find her? Why have the elite Panjistri lied consistently to the Kirithons they govern? And is it possible that the catastrophe he feels impending is the result of his own past actions?
The end of the Universe. The end of everything.
The TARDIS has tracked the Timewyrm to the end of the Universe and the end of time — to the lush planet Kirith, a paradise inhabited by a physically perfect race.
Ace is not impressed. Kirith has all the appeal of a wet weekend in Margate, and its inhabitants look like third-rate Aussie soap stars.
The Doctor's troubled, too: if the Timewyrm is here, why can't he find her? Why have the elite Panjistri lied consistently to the Kirithons they govern? And is it possible that the catastrophe he feels impending is the result of his own past actions?
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Timewyrm: Apocalypse was one of only two original Doctor Who novels to be written by Nigel Robinson, the other being Birthright in 1993.
During the late 1980s he had been editor of the Target Books range of Doctor Who novelisations and had even penned four titles himself — The Edge of Destruction, The Sensorites, The Rescue and The Underwater Menace.
Later in the decade he would end up writing all four novelisations to be based on the ITV revival of The Tomorrow People.
Doctor Who — Timewyrm: Revelation
by Paul Cornell
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- December 1991
Back Cover Blurb
The parishioners of Cheldon Bonniface walk to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1992. Snow is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?
Some years earlier, in a playground in Perivale, Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He's going to get that creepy kid Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting the Dorothy's skull. She dies instantly.
The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?
The parishioners of Cheldon Bonniface walk to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1992. Snow is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?
Some years earlier, in a playground in Perivale, Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He's going to get that creepy kid Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting the Dorothy's skull. She dies instantly.
The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Timewyrm: Revelation was Paul Cornell's first published novel. Over the next decade he would go one to write a further seven Doctor Who novels, with notable successes including Love and War, which introduced archaeologist Bernice Summerfield into the range, and the immensely popular Human Nature.
In 2005 he was one of the writers commissioned to contribute an episode to the first season of the revived television series starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, and in 2007 scripted a two-part adaptation of Human Nature.
