Doctor Who — Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible
by Marc Platt
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- February 1992
Other Editions
Doctor Who: Az Idõ Fogságában
Hungary / Paperback / Android / 1993
Doctor Who: Az Idõ Fogságában
Hungary / Paperback / Android / 1993
Back Cover Blurb
You're on your own, Ace.
The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears.
Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process.
Lost voyagers drawn forwards from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins.
The strands of time are tangled in a cat's cradle of dimensions.
Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future.
But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.
You're on your own, Ace.
The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears.
Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process.
Lost voyagers drawn forwards from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins.
The strands of time are tangled in a cat's cradle of dimensions.
Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future.
But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Until the re-launch of the television series in 2005, Time's Crucible was the only original Doctor Who novel to be translated into a foreign language.
- Marc Platt was one of the few contributors to the various Doctor Who novel ranges who had actually written for the television series beforehand, having scripted the 1989 story Ghost Light which had featured the Seventh Doctor and Ace. The others were Terrance Dicks, Ben Aaronovitch and Barry Letts.
Doctor Who — Cat's Cradle: Warhead
by Andrew Cartmel
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- April 1992
Back Cover Blurb
The place is Earth. The time is the near future — all too near.
Industrial development has accelerated out of all control, spawning new technologies and laying the planet to waste.
While the inner cities collapse in guerilla warfare and super-rich individuals unite in a last desperate effort — not to save mankind, but to buy themselves immortality in a poisoned world.
If Earth is to survive, someone has to stop them.
From London to New York to Turkey, Ace follows the Doctor as he prepares, finally, to strike back.
The place is Earth. The time is the near future — all too near.
Industrial development has accelerated out of all control, spawning new technologies and laying the planet to waste.
While the inner cities collapse in guerilla warfare and super-rich individuals unite in a last desperate effort — not to save mankind, but to buy themselves immortality in a poisoned world.
If Earth is to survive, someone has to stop them.
From London to New York to Turkey, Ace follows the Doctor as he prepares, finally, to strike back.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Andrew Cartmel was the script editor for Seasons Twenty-Four to Twenty-Six of the television series. He later went on to work on the BBC medical drama Casualty and the fantasy series Dark Knight.
He wrote three other Doctor Who novels, including Warlock and Warchild — sequels to Cat's Cradle: Warhead.
Doctor Who — Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark
by Andrew Hunt
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- June 1992
Back Cover Blurb
'Spare no sympathy for those creatures, They were witches, they deserved to die.'
A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes.
A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapering horn.
In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tir na n-Og, the beseiged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons.
The TARDIS's link with Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.
'Spare no sympathy for those creatures, They were witches, they deserved to die.'
A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes.
A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapering horn.
In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tir na n-Og, the beseiged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons.
The TARDIS's link with Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark is Andrew Hunt's only contribution to the world of Doctor Who publishing.
Doctor Who: Nightshade
by Mark Gatiss
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- August 1992
Back Cover Blurb
I HAVE DONE ENOUGH!
Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding her company, seeking solace in the forgotten rooms and labyrynthine passages of his ancient time machine.
Perhaps he will find the peace he yearns for on his favourite planet, Earth, in the second half of the twentieth century — in the isolated village of Crook Marsham, to be precise, in 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding.
But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless.
What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radio telescope on the moor? What is the significance of the local legends from the Civil War? And what is the aeons-old power that the Doctor is unable to resist?
I HAVE DONE ENOUGH!
Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding her company, seeking solace in the forgotten rooms and labyrynthine passages of his ancient time machine.
Perhaps he will find the peace he yearns for on his favourite planet, Earth, in the second half of the twentieth century — in the isolated village of Crook Marsham, to be precise, in 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding.
But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless.
What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radio telescope on the moor? What is the significance of the local legends from the Civil War? And what is the aeons-old power that the Doctor is unable to resist?
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Seventh Doctor / Ace
Notes
- Nightshade was Mark Gatiss' first published novel, and he would go on to write three more based on Doctor Who over the following seven years.
Today he is best known as one-quarter of the highly successful League of Gentlemen, and his writing credits also include an episode of the revived Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).
In 2005 he was picked as one of the script writers for the first season of the revived Doctor Who television series, and his script to the Unquiet Dead was subsequently published in Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts.
He contributed The Idiot's Lantern to the second season, and followed this up with an acting role in the third as Professor Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment. - Fans of UK telefantasy programmes may recognise that the character of Professor Nightshade (a TV character played in the book by Edmund Trevithick) book is closely based on Nigel Kneale's Professor Quatermass, who first appeared on BBC television in 1953's The Quatermass Experiment.
Gatiss is a major fan of Kneale's work and actually went on to appear in the 2005 remake of the first Quatermass serial for BBC Four. - A two-page prelude to Nightshade, written by Mark Gatiss, was published in Issue 190 (02/09/92) of Doctor Who Magazine.
- Nightshade was made available as a downloadable eBook on the BBC's Doctor Who website in October 2006. It was accompanied by extensive background notes from Gatiss and brand-new illustrations from artist Daryl Joyce.
Doctor Who: Love and War
by Paul Cornell
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- October 1992
Back Cover Blurb
On a planet called Heaven, all hell is breaking loose.
Heaven is a paradise for both humans and Draconians — a place of rest in more ways than one. The Doctor comes here on a trivial mission — to find a book, or so he says — and Ace, wandering alone in the city, becomes involved with a charismatic Traveller called Jan.
But the Doctor is strenuously opposed to the romance. What is he trying to prevent? Is he planning some more deadly game connected with the mysterious objects causing the military forces of Heaven such concern?
Archaeologist Bernice Summerfield thinks so. Her destiny is inextricably linked with that of the Doctor, but even she may not be able to save Ace from the Time Lord's plans.
This time, has the Doctor gone too far?
On a planet called Heaven, all hell is breaking loose.
Heaven is a paradise for both humans and Draconians — a place of rest in more ways than one. The Doctor comes here on a trivial mission — to find a book, or so he says — and Ace, wandering alone in the city, becomes involved with a charismatic Traveller called Jan.
But the Doctor is strenuously opposed to the romance. What is he trying to prevent? Is he planning some more deadly game connected with the mysterious objects causing the military forces of Heaven such concern?
Archaeologist Bernice Summerfield thinks so. Her destiny is inextricably linked with that of the Doctor, but even she may not be able to save Ace from the Time Lord's plans.
This time, has the Doctor gone too far?
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Ace / Bernice Summerfield
Seventh Doctor / Ace / Bernice Summerfield
Notes
- Love and War was Paul Cornell's second Doctor Who novel, and is best known for introducing popular companion Bernice Summerfield — the first to be created specifically for the Doctor Who novels — as well as temporarily writing out Ace.
Over the next fifteen years, Bernice (or Benny as she was more commonly known) would go on to feature in over forty-five Doctor Who novels, as well as being considered popular enough to take on the mantle of lead character in the New Adventures when Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who licence expired in 1997. The character later found a new home at Big Finish Production where Benny is now the star of six audio dramas and three books every year. - A two-page prelude to Love and War, written by Paul Cornell, was published in Issue 192 (28/10/92) of Doctor Who Magazine.
- Love and War's main foes were the Hoothi — a race of beings who were mentioned in the television series precisely once, in Terrance Dicks' 1976 story The Brain of Morbius.
Rather unfortunately, Paul Cornell had actually misheard the name, resulting in the Muthi of the television story (and Moothi of the novelisation) becoming the Hoothi of Love and War. - Love and War is the first book in the very loosely linked "Future Histories" arc, all of which take place in the future as mankind moves out beyond Earth to establish new colonies.
Doctor Who: Transit
by Ben Aaronovitch
- UK
- Paperback
- Doctor Who Books
- December 1992
Back Cover Blurb
'Oh no, not again...'
It's the ultimate in mass transit systems, a network of interstitial tunnels that bind the planets of the solar system together. Earth to Pluto in forty minutes with a supersave non-premium off-peak travel card.
But something is living in the network, chewing its way to the very heart of the system and leaving a trail of death and mutation behind it.
Once again a reluctant Doctor is dragged into human history. Back down among the joyboys, freesurfers, chessfans, politicians and floozies, where friends are more dangerous than enemies and one man's human being is another's psychotic killing machine.
Once again the Doctor is all that stands between humanity and its own mistakes.
'Oh no, not again...'
It's the ultimate in mass transit systems, a network of interstitial tunnels that bind the planets of the solar system together. Earth to Pluto in forty minutes with a supersave non-premium off-peak travel card.
But something is living in the network, chewing its way to the very heart of the system and leaving a trail of death and mutation behind it.
Once again a reluctant Doctor is dragged into human history. Back down among the joyboys, freesurfers, chessfans, politicians and floozies, where friends are more dangerous than enemies and one man's human being is another's psychotic killing machine.
Once again the Doctor is all that stands between humanity and its own mistakes.
Regular Characters
Seventh Doctor / Bernice Summerfield
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart
Seventh Doctor / Bernice Summerfield
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart
Notes
- Ben Aaronovitch was another graduate from the television series, having written Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield for Seasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six. Transit was his first original novel.
- A two-page prelude to Transit, written by Ben Aaronovitch, was published in Issue 195 (20/01/93) of Doctor Who Magazine.
- Transit War is the second book in the loosely linked "Future Histories" arc, and is now probably best known for the enormous controversy generated by the use of a certain four-letter word beginning with 'F'...
