The Face-Eater (novel)

The Face-Eater
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Sam
Main enemy:	The Face-Eater
Main setting:	Proxima 2, 2132
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Simon Messingham
Cover by:	Black Sheep
Release details
Release number:	18
Release date:	4 January 1999
Format:	Paperback Book; 20 Chapters, 276 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-55569-6
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
← Previous	Beltempest
Next →	The Taint

The Face-Eater was the eighteenth BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel. It featured the Eighth Doctor and Samantha Jones. It is the first of two novels Simon Messingham wrote for the EDAs (The Infinity Race was the second).

Publisher’s summary

The Doctor and Sam arrive on Proxima II, one of the earliest planets colonised in humanity’s first big push into space. But instead of a brave new world, they find a settlement rife with superstition and unrest.

The native Proximans are inexplicably dying out. Humans too are being killed in horrific ways, with each face being stripped bare.

Posing as investigators from Earth, the Doctor and Sam must track down the force moving through the dark catacombs beneath Proxima City. It seems that the superstitious whisperings of the colonists may be well founded — that the sinister Face-Eater from Proximan mythology has awakened from its long sleep, to drive out all those who would defile its world...

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Eighth Doctor
• Samantha Jones
• Helen Percival
• Ben Fuller
• Joan Betts
• Jake Leary
• The Face-Eater
• de Winter
• Jeffries
• Sims

References

• The Oceanic-Nippon Bloc existed in the 22nd century.

Books

• Professor Joan Betts wrote The Life and Customs of the Marine Saurians after spending three years investigating the Sea Devil base that was involved in the attack on Sea Base 4 in 2084.

Colony planets

• Proxima 2 is Earth's first interstellar colony.

Corporations

• Global Mining Corporation has records of the Doctor and a female associate who uses several aliases including Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith and Ace.
• The female associate is listed as having graduated from Geneva Corporate University in 2124.

The Doctor

• The Doctor rambles as he talks to Jake Leary, mentioning a number of things. "I've seen it all over the galaxy. Werewolves, manitous, shape-shifters, Rutans, robots. Even the Master has been known to give it a whirl. And did I tell you about that time at Crook Marsham? Most memorable."
• When the Doctor is attacked by the Face Eater, he sees: Susan Foreman and Polly Wright laughing, his old diary, a Prydonian headdress, Sam's face, and a Cyberman floating through space.

Individuals

• Joan Betts is a xenoanthropologist.

Species

• The Rutans gained their shape shifting ability through genetic tampering.
• Mention is made of a Bug Eyed Monster (BEM). This is how UNIT supposedly classifies such things.
• The Proximan natives are rodent creatures that can mimic others.
• The Doctor claims that Mars has two indigenous species, one of them being the Ice Warriors.
• Joan Betts is killed by a Face-Eater.
• The Face-Eater is also known to native Proximans as F'Seeta; it is a shape shifter.

Spacecraft

• The New Horizon was the first human large-scale colony transporter and arrived on Proxima 2 in 2128.

Technology

• Sam Jones is still a little bit paranoid about nanotech being in her body.

Notes

to be added

Continuity

• The events of TV: Warriors of the Deep are mentioned.
• The Doctor's imprisonment in PROSE: Seeing I is mentioned by the shape shifter.
• There is a flashback sequence to TV: Planet of the Spiders.
• Sam no longer has the nanotech in her body she accquired in PROSE: Beltempest.
• The Doctor tells Leary of the time he met the Hoothi. (PROSE: Love and War)
• The Doctor mentions that the Master once had a go at being a werewolf. (TV: Survival)

External links

• The Face-Eater at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Face-Eater at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Face-Eater