Set Piece (novel)

Set Piece
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace, Benny
Featuring:	Kadiatu
Main enemy:	Robot Ants, Ship
Main setting:	Sydney, 1995 Bellatrix City, 25th century Argolis Cortese, 1815 Egypt, 1366 BC Cairo, 1798 Paris, 1871
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Kate Orman
Cover by:	Tony Masero
Release details
Release number:	35
Release date:	16 February 1995
Format:	Paperback Book; 19 Chapters, 241 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20436-0
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	Warlock
Next →	Infinite Requiem

Set Piece is the thirty-fifth New Adventures novel. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield. This is the last novel to feature Ace as an ongoing companion in the Virgin New Adventures novel range. She reappears as a "guest character" in Head Games, Happy Endings and Lungbarrow.

Although he is the "Set" of the title, and his worshippers play an important part in the plot, Sutekh does not actually appear in the story.

Publisher's summary

Dead. He was dead. How the hell was she supposed to do CPR on a man with two hearts?

There's a rip in the fabric of space and time. Passenger ships are disappearing from the interstellar traffic lanes. In an attempt to find out who's behind the disappearances, the Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be captured. But when Bernice's rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, the time travellers find themselves scattered throughout history.

Ace, stranded in Ancient Egypt, struggles to survive in an environment as alien as a distant planet: the Earth 3,000 years before she was born. She manages to find employment as a nobleman's bodyguard. And then she comes face to face with the metal horrors which have pursued her through time — the creatures she saw kill the Doctor.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Ace
• Bernice Summerfield
• Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart
• Sedjet
• Vivant Denon
• Sesehset / Sesehaten
• Pharaoh Akhenaten
• Ship
• Thierry

Worldbuilding

The Doctor

• The Doctor knows how to speak French (separate from the TARDIS).

Ace

• Ace ends up in a relationship with one of Captain Sorin's ancestors, Count Nikolai Sorin, at one point.
• Ace tells Sesehset about the butterfly effect.

Foods and beverages

• The Doctor drinks wine for breakfast with Kadiatu and Thierry.
• Bernice drinks absinthe and eats grapes in Cairo. She drinks beer in a seedy bar and wins a drinking competition in order to gain information.
• Benny's travelling bag holds gold, vodka, antibiotics and camping equipment.

Individuals

• Time calls the Doctor her champion.
• The Doctor first met Death on a Gallifreyan hill side.
• Vivant Denon harbours Kadiatu.

Languages

• Ace speaks Egyptian when stuck in Egypt, but doesn't realise it's because of the TARDIS until she's been there for several months.

Locations

• Ace goes to Glebe (Sydney, Australia), aged thirty-seven.

Theories and concepts

• Net, Isis, Khepri, Khnum, Set, and Re were among the gods replaced with Aten by Pharaoh Akhenaten.
• Some of Death's "siblings" appear, including Pain and Time. All the Eternals (Time, Death, Pain) appear to be female.
• Pain clarifies for Benny that her mother (Claire Summerfield) was killed by the first Dalek beams during the attack on their colony.
• The Doctor notes there are places in time where history can change, and he calls these "disequilibrium points."

Time Lords

• The Doctor showed the Brigadier how to disable a Time Lord (in case the Master ever returns to Earth); a blow to the left shoulder on a Time Lord hits a vital nerve cluster.

Timeline

• Ace visits Denon in 1815, aged twenty-eight.

Weapons

• Ace carries a Draconian army knife.

Notes

• Sophie Aldred wrote the afterword for this novel.
• A prelude to this novel appeared in DWM 222.
• The working title for this novel was Butterfly Wings.
• Since joining the Doctor at 16, this story establishes that Ace spent seven years in the TARDIS, separate from her three years in Spacefleet, and leaves at 26.

Continuity

• The Doctor states that several months passed between repairing the TARDIS with protoplasm (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark) and ridding himself of the infection because of it. (PROSE: Deceit)
• Time Lord nanites can regrow limbs. The Tenth Doctor would later re-grow a hand shortly after his regeneration. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
• Kadiatu recalls the Sol Transit System, the Thousand Day War, the Angel Francine, and the nuclear explosion she used to power her timeship. (PROSE: Transit)
• The Doctor, Ace, and Benny visit a cafe on Argolis while tracking the temporal fractures. (TV: The Leisure Hive)
• Whilst reading records of the history of Egypt, Ace finds references to Daleks in the pyramids. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
• Upon first seeing her, the Doctor mistakes Kadiatu for Ruby Duvall. (PROSE: Iceberg)
• Kadiatu will appear again, (PROSE: The Also People) as will Ace (PROSE: Head Games) both who attend Benny's wedding. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
• The Doctor compares his Ship infection to the protoplasm of Goibhnie. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark)
• He has a conversation with an imaginary Benny and Ace. He previously spoke with an imaginary Benny when he thought she'd died. (PROSE: Falls the Shadow)
• Benny recalls the Hoothi. (PROSE: Love and War)
• Ace recalls Jan Rydd (PROSE: Love and War) and Alan; (PROSE: Blood Heat) the Doctor destroying Skaro (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and trapping the Timewyrm; (PROSE: Timewyrm Revelation) and surviving Olleril, (PROSE: Tragedy Day) Peladon, (PROSE: Legacy) Belial, (PROSE: Lucifer Rising) and Antykhon. (PROSE: Birthright)
• Benny and Ace encounter Setites, followers of Sutekh, whom the Doctor explains he defeated. (TV: Pyramids of Mars) The three travellers will later reunite and battle a returned Sutekh. (AUDIO: The Triumph of Sutekh)
• Denon has seen Ace's portait. (TV: Silver Nemesis)
• Benny notes Ace's graffiti is older than the Exxilons visiting Earth (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird) and the Doctor challenging Fenric. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
• The Doctor still has Cameca's brooch. (TV: The Aztecs, PROSE: White Darkness)
• Ace tells the Egyptians the story of the traitor and the girl with magic powers. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
• The Eternals Pain, Death, and Time appear in dreams, and the Doctor makes a deal with one again. (PROSE: Love and War)
• Ace was transported in the time storm two millions years into the future to Iceworld. (TV: Dragonfire)
• She uses the Sisterhood of Karn's salve in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
• Pain shows Benny scenes of Ace and the Doctor with the Timewyrm (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys) and Ace, Robin Yeadon and the Doctor. (PROSE: Nightshade)
• Ship's gatekeepers give Ace the same feeling she got from the Garvond's Time Soldiers. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders)
• Pain tells Benny her mother was killed in the first Dalek blasts, and not stunned like she thought. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)
• "Cruk" is a common swearword of Benny's time, which Ace also uses frequently. (PROSE: Love and War)
• The Doctor tells Kadiatau about dimensional transference. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)
• Ace remembers the Doctor's three rules, (TV: Dragonfire) him telling Fenric to kill her, (TV: The Curse of Fenric) being influenced on the Cheetah World, (TV: Survival) falling out with the Doctor, (PROSE: Love and War) being controlled by the Blue, (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird) and pretending to stab the Doctor. (PROSE: No Future)
• Ace visits Cristián and Ben Alvarez in 2002. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)

External links

• Set Piece at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Set Piece at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Set Piece
• Prelude to Set Piece as published in DWM#222
• But the Details Aren't Important - Writing Set Piece by Kate Orman (Article) - TSV 45
• Interview with Kate Orman, in issue 2 of Broadsword