The Forgotten Army (novel)

The Forgotten Army
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Amy
Featuring:	Trinity
Main enemy:	General Erik, Vykoids
Main setting:	New York City, 2010
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Brian Minchin
Read by:	Olivia Colman
Cover by:	Lee Binding
Release details
Release number:	39
Release date:	22 April 2010
Format:	Hardcover, 248 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84607-987-0
BBC New Series Adventures
← Previous	Night of the Humans
Next →	Nuclear Time

The Forgotten Army was the thirty-ninth novel in the BBC New Series Adventures series. It was written by Brian Minchin and featured the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

Publisher's summary

Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the froze Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn't a story. And the army is ready to attack.

New York — one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth... But what's going on in the Museum? And is that really a Woolly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway?

An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as Ice Age creatures come back to life, and the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they're only seven centimetres high.

With the Doctor kidnapped, and the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien forcefield, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn't, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet.

But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army?

Plot

The Doctor and Amy Pond land in the Times Square in 2010, much to the Doctor's excitement. He leads Amy to a long queue in an alley, waiting at a cart called Paulie's Sausage Burgers. The Doctor claims that beings from all over the Universe and Time come to eat at Paulie's, pointing out a Judoon, a Graske and a few other aliens in line and seated nearby.

to be continued

Characters

• Eleventh Doctor
• Amy Pond
• Sam Horwitz
• Polly Vernon
• NYPD Officer Oscar Henderson
• NYPD Commander Jackie Stebbins
• Vykoids

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor can make the TARDIS go five seconds out of sync with the rest of time by clicking his fingers.
• Amy grew up in Inverness, Scotland before moving to Leadworth.
• A Judoon, three Graske and a Cat Person are among the aliens eating at "Big Paulie's Sausages".

Notes

• Trinity Wells makes her first appearance in a Doctor Who novel. The Doctor says that he has never met her, but when she's on the telly, he knows the world is in danger. This paraphrases a quote by Russell T Davies on Doctor Who Confidential.
• This is a comedic style book.
• There is much "toilet humour" in this story. Upon awakening, the Mammoth's first act is to defecate, in spite of the fact that it is actually an alien spaceship. Later on, Amy slips in dung, the Mammoth farts (again, ignoring the fact that it is an alien spaceship) and the Doctor says the "asteroid" mines of the Vykroid homeworld are actually excrement of a space-boar, a large animal which fed on the swamps of a planet and grew big enough for space travel.
• At the end, the Doctor announces their next stop as the Delerium Archive, placing this adventure directly before the television story The Time of Angels.
• The Doctor makes himself known to Stebbins by using the code "X231 hyphen 19 ten", a code that, according to Stebbins, has been in on record since 1932.
• According to the Doctor, the restaurant "Big Paulie's Sausages" in June 2010 is the best place in history to eat at, with many species saving up to make the trip to eat there.
• This story was also released as an ebook available from the Amazon Kindle store.

Continuity

• Amy recalls Mrs Poggit (and her bad hip) from Leadworth. (TV: Amy's Choice)
• The Doctor makes reference to the last time he was in New York City, saying he spent far too long underground. (TV: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks)
• The Doctor states yet again (several times) that "bowties are cool", (TV: The Eleventh Hour, Amy's Choice, Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger, The Big Bang) and says that "they'll all be wearing them soon", which actually occurs in COMIC: Fashion Victims.
• The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to make a wooden chair fall apart, despite the fact that it usually "doesn't do wood". (TV: Silence in the Library, The Hungry Earth, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
• Amy has a strange recollection of seeing Nile Penguins in the museum. (TV: The Big Bang)
• The Doctor mentions having "borrowed" the TARDIS, a fact later repeated by him in TV: The Big Bang.
• The Doctor mentions the Shadow Proclamation. (TV: Rose, et al.)
• The Doctor sends Amy messages on the psychic paper (TV: New Earth, Silence in the Library) and refers to the Atraxi doing the same in TV: The Eleventh Hour.
• Barack Obama is mentioned as being President of the United States, following on from his appearance in TV: The End of Time.
• Joe Hudson's father still talks about the time Joe "froze and started chanting". (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
• The Doctor mentions all the clocks resetting to zero — this was apparently due to a computer fault. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
• Various smaller scale alien invasions are mentioned, but not the 2009 Dalek invasion of Earth - most likely due to it being erased by a crack in space and time. (TV: Victory of the Daleks, Flesh and Stone)
• General Erik observes that Amy is "so important to [the Doctor], but [she doesn't] know why". The reason for this is revealed in TV: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
• Amy mentions that the Doctor had planned to take her to see the moons of Poosh. The Lost Moon of Poosh was among the celestial bodies stolen by the Daleks in TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.
• The Doctor says he wants to ensure there are no cracks in New York. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
• No-one on Earth feels safe at Christmas, following various invasions by the Sycarox and Racnoss, the Titanic descending on Buckingham Palace and the resurrection of the Master. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The Runaway Bride, Voyage of the Damned, The End of Time)

Editions published outside Britain

• Published in France by Milady in 2012 as a paperback edition.

• 

  French edition

Audiobook

• This novel was released as an audiobook in December 2010 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Olivia Colman.

• 

  Audiobook cover

External links

• The Forgotten Army at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Forgotten Army at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Forgotten Army
• BBC Shop - The Forgotten Army