The Crystal Bucephalus (novel)

The Crystal Bucephalus
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion
Main enemy:	Maximillian Arrestis
Main setting:	Crystal Bucephalus New Alexandria, 10,764
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Craig Hinton
Cover by:	Alister Pearson
Release details
Release number:	4
Release date:	17 November 1994
Format:	Paperback Book; 18 Chapters, 296 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20429-8
Virgin Missing Adventures
← Previous	Venusian Lullaby
Next →	State of Change

You may be looking for the titular restaurant.

The Crystal Bucephalus was the fourth novel in the Virgin Missing Adventures series. It was written by Craig Hinton. It was the only Missing Adventure novel to feature the Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough travelling together. In addition, Kamelion made a rare appearance.

Also, it was one of only three novels published under Virgin Publishing's control of the Doctor Who licence to feature the Cybermen. The others were Killing Ground and Iceberg.

Publisher's summary

"I'm a Time Lord, not a bank manager. When I invested in this place I had no idea that it would succeed. I mean — a time-travelling restaurant?"

The Crystal Bucephalus: a restaurant patronised by the highest echelons of society in the 10th millennium. The guests are projected back in time to sample the food and drink of a bygone age.

When the galaxy's most notorious crime boss is murdered in the Bucephalus, The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are immediately arrested for the killing. To prove their innocence, they must track down the perpetrators of slaughter and sabotage, and uncover a conspiracy which has been 5,000 years in the making.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Fifth Doctor
• Tegan Jovanka
• Vislor Turlough
• Kamelion
• Alexhendri Lassiter
• Maximillian Arrestis
• Sebastian Lassiter
• Sven Tornqvist
• Ladygay Matisse
• Garrett Byson
• Hellenica Monroe
• Hercule DeSalle
• Neil Corridge
• Simon Clavis
• Logan (The Crystal Bucephalus)
• Issasis the Draconian
• Untaxyr the Martian
• Kruust

Worldbuilding

• Psychovators are a psychic race.

The Doctor

• The Fifth Doctor can "swim" through the Time Vortex.
• The Doctor again demonstrates his psychic prowess by seizing control of Kamelion from "Lazarus" and speaking through Kamelion's mouth.
• The Doctor spends an extended period trapped on the ice planet Pella Satyrnis and creates the Tempus Fugit while trapped there.

Individuals

• While stranded in 1980s London, Tegan meets a young waitress in a McDonald's restaurant.

Species

• The Gubbage Cones are mentioned.

Notes

• Craig Hinton jokingly referred to this novel as "the Crystal Bucket".
• The image of Kamelion on the cover is a photograph rather than an illustration.
• At the climax of this story, the internal dimensions of the TARDIS are so massively damaged (while stopping a vortex rupture) that all that is left is the cloister room and a lot of empty white space. This leads the Doctor to comment that it is high time to redesign the console room. This leads directly into the television story The Five Doctors, where he is cleaning the reconfigured console.
• Kamelion admits to needing someone to command him. Free will is unsettling for him. The TARDIS also talks to him. This explains his whereabouts between the television stories The King's Demons and Planet of Fire.
• The Crystal Bucephalus resembles the Capitol on Gallifrey; Kamelion points out that "the co-ordinates for New Alexandria are the same as-" but is cut off by Turlough. The 2018 short story The Story So Far... later established that New Alexandria was one of the Nine Homeworlds.
• There are a number of Star Trek references in this novel:
  • Latinum is mentioned.
  • Turlough notes that the planet Qo'noS has suffered plasma damage on its biosphere. This is a reference to the Klingon homeworld and the destruction wrought by the explosion of its moon Praxis in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
  • Risa is mentioned.
  • A man says a Union disruptor looks like something from Star Trek.
  • The Vulcan Academia Scholastica is mentioned on three occasions.
• The novel was originally pitched as a New Adventure featuring the Seventh Doctor; a chapter of this original submission was published in the 1999 charity anthology Perfect Timing 2.

Continuity

• The Doctor claims that he has not smoked tobacco in four incarnations. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
• The Doctor remembers Alexander the Great being "a dreadful bore". (AUDIO: Farewell, Great Macedon)
• Tegan refers to her encounters with the Cybermen, (TV: Earthshock) the Terileptils (TV: The Visitation) and the Mara. (TV: Kinda, Snakedance, AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake)
• The Doctor recalls his most recent encounter with the Time Lords (TV: Arc of Infinity) as well as his encounters with Ruath (PROSE: Goth Opera) and Omega. (TV: Arc of Infinity; AUDIO: Omega)
• The Doctor once again refers to humanity as being "indomitable". (TV: The Ark in Space, Utopia)
• The Doctor's jacket was given to him by Professor George Litefoot. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
• Tegan recalls that she was last in a medieval castle only a few days before. (TV: The King's Demons)
• The Doctor laments the destruction of his sonic screwdriver by the Terileptil leader in September 1666, and opines that he should have sued the Terileptils for criminal damage. (TV: The Visitation)
• A book by Ernst Findecker is in the TARDIS library. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
• New Alexandria is one of the Nine Homeworlds. (PROSE: The Story So Far...)

Gallery

• 

  Official cover

• 

  Pulp cover from Shelf Life

External links

• The Crystal Bucephalus at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Crystal Bucephalus at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Crystal Bucephalus