The Sleep of Reason

For the work by Goya, see The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. For the C. P. Snow novel, see Strangers and Brothers.

The Sleep of Reason

Author	Martin Day
Series	Doctor Who book: Eighth Doctor Adventures
Release number	70
Subject	Featuring: Eighth Doctor Fitz, Trix
Publisher	BBC Books
Publication date	August 2004
Pages	288
ISBN	ISBN 0-563-48620-1
Preceded by	The Tomorrow Windows
Followed by	The Deadstone Memorial

The Sleep of Reason is a BBC Books original novel written by Martin Day and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Trix.

Plot

The Doctor poses as a psychiatrist to investigate strange goings on at a mental health hospital.

The Eighth Doctor ages about 100 years during this novel, because he travels back in time using a Sholem-Luz portal to shape events at the turn of the century, and then has to sleep in a casket in the cathedral to return to the present.

The Doctor is always referred to as 'Smith' in this story, except by Fitz and Trix. This is a reference to the classic series, when The Doctor would sometimes call himself John Smith (a very common British name).

Day said on the Jade Pagoda discussion group that the first chapter of The Sleep of Reason had originally been written for a non-Doctor Who novel that was never completed. Day then adapted it for the Doctor Who format.

The title is a take from the 1799 Francisco Goya aquatint etching "El sueno de la razon produce monstruos" ("The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"), part of the artist's Los Caprichos set.

Eighth Doctor Adventures