Birthright (novel)

Birthright
Adapted into:	Birthright
Main character(s):	Ace, Benny
Featuring:	Seventh Doctor
Main enemy:	Charrl, Jared Khan
Main setting:	London, 1909; Antýkhon, 22,000
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Nigel Robinson
Cover by:	Peter Elson
Release details
Release number:	17
Release date:	19 August 1993
Format:	Paperback Book; 40 Chapters, 216 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20393-3
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	Shadowmind
Next →	Iceberg
DWM "New Adventures order"
← Previous	Shadowmind
Next →	Iceberg

You may wish to consult Birthright (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Birthright was the seventeenth of Virgin Books' New Adventures novels. It was written by Nigel Robinson, published in 1993, and featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny. Notably, the story focused on the companions, who are separated from the Doctor while he experienced the events of the next novel, Iceberg.

Publisher's summary

"I feel like a pawn in a blasted chess game, Ace." "I know what you mean. Trouble is, they keep changing the chess-players."

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.

In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects, something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Ace
• Bernice Summerfield
• The Charrl
• Queen Ch'tizz
• Mikhail Vladamir Popov
• Jared Khan
• Margaret Waterfield
• Muldwych
• Ernie Wright
• Natasha Popova
• Randolph Bellingham
• Reggie Hawkins
• Charlie Jackson
• Rosa
• Isk
• Chel
• Korin
• Seeba
• Skol
• Maria
• Herbert Asquith

Worldbuilding

Cults

• The Brotherhood of the New Dawn believes man has become decadent and evil.

Diseases and illnesses

• Bernice contracts the flu.

Individuals

• Margaret Waterfield is Edward Waterfield's sister and Victoria Waterfield's paternal aunt. She is murdered by Kahn's thugs.

Languages

• Bernice can't read Cyrillic.

Locations

• Channel Tunnel still survives in 22,000.

Planets

• Antýkhon is a future Earth.
• New Skaro is the new home planet of the Daleks.

TARDIS

• The Time Vector Generator is an ebony bar that links the exterior and interior dimensions of a TARDIS.

Theories and concepts

• The Charrl created three hundred of the 700 Wonders of the Universe.
• The Migration is the movement of the Charrl from Antýkhon to Earth.

Time travel

• The Great Divide, a temporal portal from approximately 22,000 to 1909.
• Ace gets transported to the year 22,000.
• Bernice gets transported to 1909.

Food and beverages

• Ace used to drink Southern Comfort as a teenager.

Notes

• This is one of several Virgin New Adventures which were adapted by Big Finish Productions for their first season of Bernice Summerfield audio dramas.
• This novel almost does not feature the Seventh Doctor.
• A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 203.
• The jacket illustration for this book was incorrectly reproduced reversed as a full-colour page in Timeframe: The Illustrated History. A second edition and paperback corrected this error.
• The cover art of Birthright was reproduced in the Leekley Bible to illustrate the brief synopsis of Ark in Space.

Continuity

• This novel runs parallel with the events of PROSE: Iceberg, with the Doctor being absent for the majority of Birthright. This was the first "Doctor-lite" novel under the New Adventures banner (Target Books previously published two non-Doctor original novels, Harry Sullivan's War and Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma), and in some ways was a rehearsal for the later Doctor-less series of novels featuring Benny that began in 1996.
• The Charrl and Muldwych make an appearance in PROSE: Happy Endings.
• Muldwych refers to the fact that that there are only 699 of the 700 Wonders of the Universe left. (TV: Death to the Daleks)
• The Doctor also encountered a renamed future Earth in TV: The Mysterious Planet.
• Mikhail Vladamir Popov returns for a brief cameo in Happy Endings as one of Bernice's wedding guests.
• The Doctor's eagle pedestal speaks to Benny. (TV: The Pirate Planet)
• Ace refers to a trip she took with the Doctor to Africa "a long time ago". The hive of the Charrl resembles termite mounds which she saw there. (PROSE: Prelude: Birthright)

External links

• Prelude to Birthright as published in DWM #203
• Birthright at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Birthright at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Birthright
• Beyond the Book: Birthright by Paul Scoones (Article) - TSV 36
• Interview with Nigel Robinson, in issue 5 of Broadsword