Harvest of Time (novel)

Harvest of Time
Doctor:	Third Doctor
Companion(s):	The Brigadier, Benton, Yates, Jo
Featuring:	The Master
Main enemy:	Sild
Main setting:	England, the 1970s Praxilion, the far future
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Alastair Reynolds
Read by:	Geoffrey Beevers
Cover by:	Two Associates
Release details
Release date:	4 June 2013
Format:	Hardback, 368 pages
ISBN:	ISBN 978-0-385-34680-1
(informally) BBC Books past Doctor novels
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Next →	The Drosten's Curse

Harvest of Time was a 2013 Doctor Who novel, unusual for being a new Third Doctor novel published while the BBC Wales television series featured another incumbent Doctor. Poll results published in issue 479 of Doctor Who Magazine showed that readers had selected it as the best fiction book of that year.

Publisher's summary

After billions of years of imprisonment, the vicious Sild have broken out of confinement. From a ruined world at the end of time, they make preparations to conquer the past, with the ultimate goal of rewriting history. But to achieve their aims they will need to enslave an intellect greater than their own...

On Earth, UNIT is called in to investigate a mysterious incident on a North Sea drilling platform. The Doctor believes something is afoot, and no sooner has the investigation begun when something even stranger takes hold: The Brigadier is starting to forget about UNIT's highest-profile prisoner. And he is not alone in his amnesia.

As the Sild invasion begins, the Doctor faces a terrible dilemma. To save the universe, he must save his arch-nemesis... The Master.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Third Doctor
• Jo Grant
• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
• Captain Mike Yates
• Sergeant Benton
• The Master
• Eddie McCrimmon
• Tom Irwin
• Pete Lomax
• Callum McCrimmon
• Morag
• Callow
• Lovelace
• Pat McGinty
• Inspector Archie Hawes
• DI Ian Staple
• WPC Susan Cooper
• PC Nick Wean
• Director Childers
• Atkins
• Inar Sigurdsson
• Dave Giles
• Mrs Gambrel
• Lorry driver
• Soldier
• Bill
• Jerry Evans
• Helicopter Pilot
• Helicopter Co-Pilot
• Ver
• Hox
• Loi

Worldbuilding

• Including other time streams, the Master has about 470 incarnations in total.
• The Master's personality has always been influenced by the Assemblage, an organic computer made by the combination of all his selves.
• The Doctor mentions Type 44 TARDISes.
• Ice Warriors and Judoon are mentioned.
• The Master discovered an old TARDIS near the end of the universe. Like the Doctor's TARDIS, it's an old Type 40 with a malfunctioning chameleon circuit which the Master easily repaired.

Foods and beverages

• Jo eats toast.
• The Doctor eats a biscuit dunked in tea.

Continuity

• The Doctor mentions the Master's previous alliances with the Nestene Consciousness (TV: Terror of the Autons) and the Axos. (TV: The Claws of Axos)
• One of the Master's future incarnations is said to look like a "politician". (TV: The Sound of Drums)
• The Doctor notices various disfigured versions of the Master, reflecting the condition he was depicted in during TV: The Deadly Assassin and The Keeper of Traken.
• The Doctor recalls seeing the Earth destroyed millions of years in the far future. (TV: The Ark)
• This was the first appearance of a female incarnation of the Master. A female incarnation using the diminutive "Missy", short for the Mistress, would later reveal herself to the Twelfth Doctor in TV: Dark Water.

Additional cover images

• 

  2014 BBC Books paperback edition

Editions published outside Britain

• Published in the USA by Broadway Books in 2013 as a paperback edition, it was one of three books published by them in the 2010's. It used the same cover as the UK hardback.
• Published in France by Milady in 2014 as a hardback edition, it was one of three books published in the 2010's.

• 

  French edition

Audiobook

• This novel was released as an audiobook on 6 June 2013 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Geoffrey Beevers.
• Produced by David Darlington with sound design by Simon Hunt.
• The audiobook was also available as a download from the AudioGo website, and is now available from Audible.

• 

  Audiobook cover

External links

• The Discontinuity Guide to: Harvest of Time at The Whoniverse