The Gallifrey Chronicles
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| Doctor Who book | |
 |
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| The Gallifrey Chronicles | |
|---|---|
| Writer | John Peel |
| Publisher | Virgin Publishing |
| ISBN | ISBN 1852273291 |
| No. of pages | 138 |
| Release date | 1991 |
The Gallifrey Chronicles is the title of two books related to the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The first, by John Peel, is an exploration of the fictional history of the planet Gallifrey, as revealed in the television series. It was published by Virgin Publishing in 1991.
The second is a BBC Books original novel written by Lance Parkin. It was the last of the Eighth Doctor Adventures range and features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Trix.
Like all spin-off media, the canonicity of these two books in relation to the television series is unclear.
Contents |
[edit] John Peel book
The 1991 book The Gallifrey Chronicles is a guide to the history, culture and technology of the planet Gallifrey, original home of the Doctor. It contains accounts of Gallifrey and the Time Lords as revealed in the television programme, speculative essays on subjects such as the mechanism of regeneration and the intelligence of the TARDIS, and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon, a fictional account of Rassilon's rise to power and the earliest days of the Time Lords. Some of the book's conjectures — notably, the theory that the TARDIS telepathically translates languages for its inhabitants — were later confirmed in the television series.
[edit] Eighth Doctor novel
| Doctor Who book | |
 |
|
| The Gallifrey Chronicles | |
|---|---|
| Series | Eighth Doctor Adventures |
| Release number | 73 |
| Featuring | Eighth Doctor Fitz, Trix, Anji, K-9 |
| Writer | Lance Parkin |
| Publisher | BBC Books |
| ISBN | ISBN 0563486244 |
| Set between | To the Slaughter and Rose |
| No. of pages | 283 |
| Release date | June 2005 |
| Preceded by | To the Slaughter |
[edit] Plot
The Eighth Doctor returns to Earth in 2005 and discovers that another Time Lord, Marnal, had also survived the destruction of Gallifrey. 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 has been aboard ever since Gallifrey's destruction, 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 had lost his memory.
It transpires that, just prior to destroying Gallifrey, the Doctor (with the help of his former companion Compassion) had downloaded the entire 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 from travelling beyond Gallifrey's destruction, and vice versa. Both the planet and the Time Lords could be restored, along with the Doctor's memory, if a sufficiently sophisticated computer could be found to reconstruct them. Before that could be done, however, the problem of the Vore must be dealt with.
[edit] Trivia
- This is the last novel of its series (which began with The Eight Doctors). Fear Itself (by Nick Wallace), a novel published subsequently featuring the Eighth Doctor, but set before The Gallifrey Chronicles, came out as part of the Past Doctor Adventures line.
- The use of the seal of Rassilon on the cover mirrors its use on the cover of the first Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Eight Doctors.
- References are made in this novel to the Timewyrm (from the Virgin New Adventures), former companion Samantha Jones and various events that have occurred during the course of the Eighth Doctor Adventures.
- One of Marnal's written works is titled "The Giants", which was also the title of the potential, rejected, first ever Doctor Who television serial, written by C. E. Webber.[1] The opening passage of "The Giants" in The Gallifrey Chronicles is identical to the prologue of Death Comes to Time. The plot of another book resembles that of The Infinity Doctors, also written by Parkin. Other unused Doctor Who story titles referenced in the book include The Witch Lords (a working title for State of Decay) and The Red Fort (a proposed First Doctor historical story commissioned from Terry Nation).
- Possible threats to Gallifrey mentioned by Marnal include the Klade (Father Time), the Tractites (Genocide), Centro (The Infinity Doctors) and the Ongoing.
- Marnal also recites a list of some of the Eighth Doctor’s companions, which include some previously unknown names. The unidentifiable ones are: Lorenzo, Delilah, Frank, Claudia, Deborah (possibly Debbie Castle from Father Time), Jemima-Katy (the name of a companion being "auditioned" by Jon Pertwee in a 1990s BBC radio comedy sketch), Nina, and Beatrice (possibly Trix).
- Larna speaks of a prophecy that before its fall, Gallifrey will be attacked by several enemies. These include Omega (The Three Doctors), the Sontarans (The Invasion of Time), Tannis (Death Comes to Time), Varnax (from an unproduced film project), Catovolcus (the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story The Neutron Knights, DWM #60), and the Timewyrm (Timewyrm: Revelation).
- When Marnal is looking through the various timestreams for the Eighth Doctor, he observes that the Doctor has "three ninth incarnations". This seemingly refers to the official Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston; the unofficial Ninth Doctor of the animated webcast Scream of the Shalka voiced by Richard E. Grant; and the incarnation played by Rowan Atkinson in the 1999 charity spoof, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.
- At the novel's end, the Doctor, Trix MacMillan and Fitz Kreiner 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 regenerated Marnal's appearance and verbal and physical mannerisms are deliberately reminiscent of Parkin's friend and collaborator Mark Clapham.[citation needed]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Howe, David J., Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1994). The Handbook: The First Doctor – The William Hartnell Years 1963-1966. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 0-426-20430-1.
[edit] External links
- The Gallifrey Chronicles at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Cloister Library - The Gallifrey Chronicles
