Blood Harvest (novel)

Blood Harvest
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace, Benny
Featuring:	Tom, Romana II, Ivo, Kalmar
Main enemy:	Agonal, Committee of Three
Main setting:	Chicago, 1929 vampire planet, E-Space Gallifrey
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Terrance Dicks
Cover by:	Bill Donohoe
Release details
Release number:	28
Release date:	21 July 1994
Format:	Paperback Book; 33 Chapters, 287 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20417-4
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	All-Consuming Fire
Next →	Strange England

Blood Harvest was the twenty-eighth New Adventures novel. It featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace, Bernice Summerfield and Romana II. It also featured a return of several characters and the "vampire planet" seen in the 1980 television story State of Decay.

Events in this novel lead to the novel Goth Opera, in order to draw attention to the newly-launched Virgin Missing Adventures line of original novels featuring past Doctors.

Publisher's summary

"Doc's peddling bootleg liquor in an illegal speakeasy. You're carrying a gun for him, Ace - which makes you no better than any other gun-moll."

Dekker is a private eye, an honest one. But when Al Capone hires him to investigate a new joint called "Doc's", he knows this is one job he can't refuse. And just why are the Doctor and Ace selling illegal booze in a town full of murderous gangsters?

Meanwhile, Bernice has been abandoned on a vampire-infested planet outside normal space. There she meets a mysterious stranger called Romanadvoratrelundar — and discovers an ancient and malevolent power, linking 1929 Chicago with a lair of immortal evil.

The consequences of this story are inextricably linked to events in the Doctor's past.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Ace
• Bernice Summerfield
• Romana
• Fourth Doctor
• K9
• Tom Dekker
• Agonal
• Al Capone
• "Bugs" Moran
• Captain Dennis Reilly
• Luigi
• Frank Rio
• Bill Thompson
• "Happy" Harrigan
• Pete Gusenburg
• Tony Ricotti
• Hymie Weiss
• William McSwiggin
• "Swifty" Morelli
• Anthony Ruthy
• Jake Lingle
• Ted Newberry
• Sam
• John May
• Frank Gusenberg
• Frank Snyder
• Jim Clark
• Schwimmer
• Ivo
• Kalmar
• Captain Varis
• Lord Yarven
• Lord Veran
• Gerda
• Magda
• Katya
• Tubar
• Tarak
• Lothar
• Tolar
• Aukon (clone)
• Camilla (clone)
• Zargo (clone)
• Rath
• Elar
• Morin
• Flavia
• Spandrell
• Lieutenant Zorell
• Commander Leran
• Pogarel
• Borusa
• Rassilon
• Ruath

Worldbuilding

• Dekker drives a Buick.
• Bernice once worked for the Ellerycorp Foundation.
• Bernice watches a Public Record Video of Flavia's inauguration.

The Doctor

• The Doctor can play the piano.

Foods and beverages

• The Doctor brews beer in the TARDIS swimming pool and whiskey in the bath.
• Bernice has a silver flask with her that has Eridanian brandy in it.
• The Doctor served English muffins for breakfast.
• Ace drinks coffee.
• Bernice eats a large meal at Veran's house, which includes venison, pasties, and oatcake, which she washes down with copious amounts of local wine. She eats omelette and venison at Lord Sargon's.

Individuals

• Mobsters call Ace "the lady in black."
• Ace sleeps with Dekker.
• Events on the planet of the vampires in E-Space don't faze Tom Dekker, but the Doctor still erases bits of his memory.
• Borusa is freed from imprisonment.

Music

• The music the Fifth Doctor played on the harp on Gallifrey to access the time scoop is called Rassilon's Lament.

Planets

• Bernice has visited a bar on Metebelis III.

Technology

• The Doctor gives Benny a SPATAB (Spatio-Temporal Alarm Beacon), a homing beacon for the TARDIS.

Time Lords

• Romana II talks about the Doctor's companions like they're amusing pets.
• The Committee of Three use the Time Scoop.
  • The Committee of Three are: Rath (a Prydonian and Goth's younger sibling), Elar (an Arcalian) and Morin (a Patraxean).

• Romana meets Ruathadvorophrenaltid.

Notes

• A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 214.
• The illustration for the cover details a corridor taken from the movie Alien as reference.
• Although the St. Valentine's Day Massacre does indeed take place in 1929 as described in the novel's publisher description, in real life other events in the novel (the shooting at the Hawthorne Hotel and the death of Hymie Weiss) took place in autumn 1926. Furthermore, Calvin Coolidge announced his decision to not run for reelection in 1927.

Continuity

• This is a sequel to TV: State of Decay and in some ways to TV: The Five Doctors.
• The Doctor uses his Reichsinspektor General badge, and gives back Spandrell's Gallifreyan Army Knife, both of which appeared in PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus.
• Dekker reappears in PROSE: Players, in which he meets the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown in London in December 1936. He obliquely refers to the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Peri suggests that he is speaking of one of his future incarnations but the Doctor dismisses this idea out of hand.
• In what appears to be a redundancy, Borusa is freed from his prison in this story, but his redemption is later depicted differently in PROSE: The Eight Doctors.
• Ruathadvorophrenaltid makes her first appearance in a brief cameo. She introduces herself as "Ruatha" for short. However, in PROSE: Goth Opera, which includes a retelling of the same scene and the subsequent events, she calls herself "Ruath" instead.
• The Doctor says that "in an authoritarian society, people obey the voice of authority." He also says this in PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Deadly Reunion and World Game.

External links

• Prelude to Blood Harvest as published in DWM #214
• Blood Harvest at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Blood Harvest at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Blood Harvest