The Gallifrey Chronicles

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Doctor Who book
Book cover
The Gallifrey Chronicles
Writer John Peel
Publisher Virgin Publishing
ISBN ISBN 1-85227-329-1
No. of pages 138
Release date 1991

The Gallifrey Chronicles is the title of two distinct 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 book 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
Book cover
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 0-563-48624-4
Set between To the Slaughter and
Rose
No. of pages 283
Release date June 2005
Preceded by To the Slaughter


[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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, hidden behind a false wall, 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, more than 140,000 Time Lords — 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. Marnal is wounded while fighting the Vore, and being on his last regeneration, he dies. The Doctor tells him that he is his hero, and Marnal dies in peace, confident that the Time Lords will be reborn.

The Doctor, Fritz, Trix and his allies travel to Africa with a Royal Navy Battle Group to confront the threat of the Vore, and the novel ends uncertainly, as the Doctor leaps into the very heart of the Vore hive.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ 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

[edit] Reviews


 v  d  e the Master novels
Missing Adventures: The Dark Path
New Adventures: First FrontierHappy Endings
Past Doctor Adventures: Deadly ReunionThe Face of the EnemyLast of the GadereneVerdigrisDivided Loyalties (cameo) • The Quantum ArchangelPrime TimeThe Infinity Doctors
Eighth Doctor Adventures: The Eight Doctors (cameo) • Legacy of the DaleksThe Adventuress of Henrietta Street (cameo) • Sometime Never... (cameo) • The Gallifrey Chronicles (cameo)
Faction Paradox: The Book of the War (War King entry)