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{{Infobox Novel|
{{title dab away}}
novel name= Timewyrm: Revelation|
{{real world}}
image= [[Image:NA004_revelation.jpg|250px]]|
{{Infobox Story SMW
series=[[Doctor Who]] -<br/>[[Virgin New Adventures]] |
|image= NA004 revelation.jpg
number= 4 |
|series = [[Virgin New Adventures]]
doctor=[[Seventh Doctor]] |
|range = Virgin New Adventures
companions= [[Ace]] |
|number in range = 4
enemy= the [[Timewyrm]] |
|number= 4
writer= [[Paul Cornell]] |
|adapted from = Total Eclipse (short story)
year= [[Earth]], [[England]], [[Norfolk]], [[Cheldon Bonniface]], [[1992]] <br> [[The Moon]], [[1992]] |
|doctor = Seventh Doctor
publisher= [[Virgin Books]] |
|featuring= First Doctor
release date= [[December]], [[1991]] |
|featuring2= Third Doctor
format= Paperback Book, 220 Pages |
|featuring3= Fourth Doctor
isbn= ISBN 0426203607 |
|featuring4= Fifth Doctor
previous story= [[Timewyrm: Apocalypse]] |
|featuring5= Death (mythology)
next story= [[Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible]]}}
|featuring6= the Hermit
|featuring7= Adric
|featuring8= Katarina
|featuring9= Sara Kingdom
|featuring10= Eighth Doctor
|companions= [[Ace]]
|enemy= The [[Timewyrm]]
|writer= Paul Cornell
|cover= [[Andrew Skilleter]]
|setting= [[Cheldon Bonniface]] and [[The Moon]], [[1992]]
|publisher= Virgin Books
|release date= 5 December 1991
|format= Paperback Book; 15 Chapters, 220 Pages
|isbn= ISBN 0-426-20360-7
|prev= Timewyrm: Apocalypse (novel)
|next= Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (novel)
|series2 = [[Interweaving with the New Adventures|''DWM'' "New Adventures order"]]  
|prev2 = Timewyrm: Apocalypse (novel)
|next2 = Fellow Travellers (comic story)
}}
'''''Timewyrm: Revelation''''' was the fourth book in the [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] series, and the fourth and final book in the [[Timewyrm]] arc. It was written by [[Paul Cornell]] and featured the [[Seventh Doctor]] and [[Ace]].


==Publisher's Summary==
== Publisher's summary ==
The parishioners of [[Cheldon Bonniface]] walk to church on the Sunday before [[Christmas]], [[1992]]. Snow is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?
The parishioners of [[Cheldon Bonniface]] walk to church on the Sunday before [[Christmas]], [[1992]]. [[Snow]] is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?


Some years earlier, in a playground in [[Perivale]], Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He’s going to get that creepy Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting Dorothy’s skull. She dies instantly.
Some years earlier, in a playground in [[Perivale]], Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He's going to get that creepy Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting Dorothy's skull. She dies instantly.


The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?
The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?


==Plot==
== Plot ==
Early in young [[Ace|Dorothy McShane]]'s life (or Dotty, as she is called) a young boy named [[Chad Boyle]] picks up a brick on the playground and hits her in the head with it, killing her instantly. Some time later, now awaiting trial and remanded to his mother's care, he is spirited away by a man in a police box. Elsewhere (and probably elsewhen, though still in modern times), in the village of [[Cheldon Bonniface]], there is a [[Saul|church]]…and it's alive. Or rather, it's permanently inhabited by an energy being named Saul, who doesn't really even know his own origin. With the reverend [[Ernest Trelaw]], Saul is a force for good in his community, and suddenly, he is faced with an odd couple. [[Peter Hutchings]] is a mathematician of considerable skill; his wife [[Emily Hutchings|Emily]] is a scholar of music, and unknown to her, possesses a strong psychic ability. They cannot have children; and so Emily is stunned when, during a service, [[Seventh Doctor|the Doctor]] runs in and places [[Ishtar Hutchings|a baby]] in her hands, then runs back out.


Ace is disturbed. The Doctor has been acting strange, leaving [[The Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] at night in random places, setting up future gambits, but something is not right about it. Now, they travel to Cheldon Bonniface, but in the Victorian era, where the Doctor is known. Ace is attacked by a child-sized astronaut, and runs away and finds herself on [[The Moon|the moon]]. The astronaut is revealed to be her childhood bully, Chad Boyle; he sends her mind away and places her body in the church, but Saul is not present in this time. Meanwhile the Doctor realises the entire village is a fake, and meets with an old adversary, [[Anthony Rupert Hemmings|Lieutenant Hemmings]] of the Freikorps (last seen in ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]'', boarding a TARDIS). Hemmings, controlled by the [[Timewyrm]], fails to capture the Doctor, who escapes in his TARDIS. The Timewyrm inhabits Boyle's body, and kills Hemmings, sending his mind to the same place as Ace's.


Nobody at St Benedict’s School in Perivale is quite sure how to react when young Chad Boyle hits his playmate Dorothy in the head with a brick, killing her. As a junior, Chad is remanded into the custody of his mother until a punishment can be decided upon, but late one night a police box materialises in his bedroom and a sleepwalking man takes Chad away to kill Dorothy again. Some years later, in 1992, the Reverend Ernest Trelaw of Cheldon Bonniface speaks with Saul, the disembodied spirit which inhabits his church; both can sense a change in the air, and they feel that perhaps their old friend the Doctor is on his way. There are two newcomers in Trelaw’s congregation; mathematician Peter Hutchings and his wife Emily, who does not realise that she is mildly psychic. Emily is still trying to deal with the recent revelation that she is unable to bear children, and she too is disoriented by the sense that something wondrous is soon to come. Halfway through the service she realises that she can perceive Saul’s presence -- and when the Doctor walks into the church, hands her a baby and walks out again, she faints dead away.
Ace, she finds, is in [[The Doctor's mind|Hell]]. Or so it is portrayed, anyway; she has her doubts. Some things are inconsistent: A library, a peaceful flower garden, and a strange room with thirteen stalls, six of which are filled with indeterminate, but humanoid, forms. Something claiming to be her rational side (but in fact is the Timewyrm) uses her to unleash a massive amount of power, vaporizing the real-world Cheldon Bonniface and all its people, and yanking the church (with Saul, Trelaw, the Hutchings, and the baby still inside) to the surface of the moon. Ace's body appears inside the church as well, on the altar, still alive but without her mind inside. The Doctor arrives inside the church, as does the Timewyrm, who forces him to confront a specter of [[Death (mythology)|death]]; but he is not moved. The Doctor enlists the help of Trelaw, Saul, and the Hutchings (leaving Emily in particular with a strange amulet) and then allows the Timewyrm to send his mind to the same place as Ace's, leaving his body in the church. The Timewyrm itself then abandons Boyle's body and follows the Doctor in.


Ace, disturbed by restless dreams, takes no comfort in knowing that the Doctor too is suffering from sleepless nights; she fears that he continues to travel while she sleeps, setting complex plans in motion without her knowledge. The TARDIS materialises in Cheldon Bonniface during the Victorian era, and while the Doctor plays chess with his old friend George the innkeeper, Ace retires to her room at the inn -- only to be attacked by an astronaut the size of a child. She manages to struggle free and flees, but emerges from the other side of the woods to find herself on the surface of the Moon. Her momentum carries her beyond the atmospheric bubble around the village, and she passes out from lack of oxygen. The young astronaut, her childhood nemesis Chad Boyle, carries Ace to the village church, and uses a device given to him by his Angel to send her mind to a place which the Angel cannot reach herself, but where a familiar personality will be granted access…
Ace meets [[First Doctor|the Librarian]], an old man who shows her that it is not Hell after all. Rather, it's the interior landscape of a mind that the Timewyrm has occupied as a base of operations. The Doctor joins her, and rescues her from torment; he learns that she is vacillating between maturity and childhood, and realises that it is because of the conflict between himself and the Timewyrm. If the Timewyrm wins, then, among other things, the vision of Chad Boyle killing Dorothy will come true, eliminating her entire adult life. If the Doctor wins, time will be restored. But the Doctor is losing.


The Doctor, realising that George is an impostor, escapes from his clutches and flees to the church -- but when he fails to find what he’s looking for there, he is forced to return to the pub to find out what’s really going on. There, “George” disposes of his disguise to reveal that he is in fact Lieutenant Hemmings of the Britischer Freikorps, removed from his own timeline by a being he believes to be one of the ancient Norse Gods, and sent to lure the Doctor into its trap. The Doctor evades him once again and flees to the TARDIS, and his real enemy, realising that Hemmings has been outwitted, disposes of the Cheldon Bonniface illusion, maintaining only a small atmospheric bubble to keep Ace’s body alive. It possesses Chad Boyle fully, reshaping his body into the form of a small dragon and sending his mind after Ace to torment her further. The dragon kills Hemmings for his failure, striking his head from his body with one powerful blow, and sends Hemmings’ mind after Ace as well. It then waits for its preparations to bear fruit, and for the Doctor to arrive…
Ace and the Doctor are confronted by the Doctor's personal demons — the ghosts of many who have fallen in service to him. Leading the pack are three of the Doctor's former companions: [[Katarina]], [[Sara Kingdom]], and [[Adric]], all of whom gave their lives in service to the Doctor. The Doctor and Ace escape this vision, and are captured by Hemmings, who is torturing [[Third Doctor|a prisoner]]. He threatens the Doctor, who gives up Ace to be tortured instead, but this allows him to confer with the prisoner. The Prisoner admits that he failed to resist Hemmings because he was troubled by his own [[Third Doctor (Inferno Earth)|demons]]. They join minds and send a message to the group in the church.


Ace awakens on what appears to be a desolate pier in Cromer, where a friendly receptionist tells her that she is dead; the Doctor gambled her life against his enemy’s plans, and lost. She is transported elsewhere to face judgement and finds herself in a vast library, where the elderly Librarian shoos away the menacing clowns emerging from the shadows and ushers Ace into a reading room. There, she finds a pack of Tarot cards with images from the Doctor’s life on them, and shining silver tentacles drag her into a globe representing the Universe and deposit her on an endless black wall. She blows a hole in the wall with her nitro-nine and passes through into a room with thirteen cubicles; seven are empty and the remaining six contain inchoate humanoid forms. A voice claiming to be her rational side tells her that she is having a nightmare, and that if she closes her eyes and concentrates upon Cheldon Bonniface, she will wake. She does so, but a terrible power then floods through her, knocking her senseless. In the TARDIS, the Doctor goes into spasm and sticks his hands into the exposed telepathic circuits -- and in Cheldon Bonniface, Saul senses some terrible force locking onto him, and shouts out a warning. The congregation flees in panic as Trelaw tries to help the confused Peter and Emily -- but the three of them are still in the church when it becomes the epicentre of an explosion which levels everything within two miles.
Together, Emily, Peter, and Saul interpret the message, which leads them to recover Hemmings' severed head from the moon. They are able to force Hemmings' consciousness back into the head, removing him from the internal landscape and freeing Ace, and letting Hemmings finally die for real. This allows the Doctor and the Third Doctor to escape imprisonment. They meet a cryptic [[Fourth Doctor|ferryman]], who takes them to the area around the mindscape's central pit. Ace, now caught in illusions of the idyllic life she wanted as a child, eventually frees herself and joins the Doctor; the Third Doctor turns back to monitor her progress.


The Doctor recovers and pilots the TARDIS to Ace’s body to confront the dragon. He knows it for what it is -- the Timewyrm, whose existence was foretold by ancient Time Lord prophets, whose feeding will break the chains of causality and bring the Universe to a premature end. He offers it mercy, but it rejects his offer, certain that it has the upper hand. St Christopher’s Church then materialises on the Moon, bringing with it the surprised Trelaw and the Hutchings. Saul discovers that the force of their departure has destroyed the village and all its inhabitants, but the Doctor urges the shaken new arrivals to remain calm; they have been brought here by an ancient evil, and must remain clear-headed for the battle to come. The Doctor removes an amulet from a crevice which even Saul did not know existed, and gives it to Emily, telling her that she will know when to use it. He then confronts the Timewyrm, who raises Death from the lunar dust and takes the Doctor’s life. The Timewyrm then animates his body, marches it into the church and lays it down next to Ace’s, and vacates the dragon’s body to follow her enemy into death. Trelaw, Saul, and the Hutchings -- and the strangely unresponsive baby -- remain in the church to await whatever will happen next.
At the pit, Chad Boyle confronts them, and stabs the Doctor — a mortal wound, but he will be slow in dying. Ace drives Boyle off, and helps the Doctor down to the bridge over the pit. She confronts the Timewyrm, which reveals its plan: this is not just any mindscape, but the Doctor's, where she hid herself [[Timewyrm: Genesys (novel)|long ago]] in [[Mesopotamia]]. As well, she has been able to exercise control briefly on several occasions, and has used the Doctor and the TARDIS to set the pieces of this complex plan in place; hence, the Doctor's mysterious nighttime excursions. If she can destroy the Doctor here, she will take over his body and powers, and consume the universe. Meanwhile, the group in the church, still following the Doctor's message, are stunned when the amulet opens into a portal into the Time Vortex. Working together, they find a path leading to the Doctor and Ace, and Emily goes through to rescue them. She successfully brings out the Doctor, but Ace is trapped. Ace is confronted by the dead companions again, who tell her to go into the pit and free the Doctor's [[Fifth Doctor|conscience]]. She finds it in the form of the Doctor's incarnation two regenerations ago, tied to a tree; she frees him, restoring the Doctor's conscience. Enraged, the Timewyrm attacks her, and Chad Boyle as well.


Ace awakens in Hell’s waiting room, her memories fragmented and confused, unable to shake the persistent conviction that Chad Boyle killed her when she was eight years old. The jeering Chad drags her back to their school, where she becomes a child once again, helpless to change the injustice in the world around her. The Doctor arrives to rescue her, but Ace is infuriated to see him in Hell; not only did he get her killed, but he’s sacrificed his own life out of guilt about it. She storms out of the school to find herself in a rose garden, her maturity restored. There, she meets the Librarian, who is trying to control an infestation threatening to destroy the garden. Chad pursues Ace and conjures weapons out of thin air, but Ace overpowers him. The Doctor intervenes, trying to stop Ace from killing Chad, but this drives another wedge between them; the Doctor has destroyed whole planets, and yet he doesn’t trust Ace to know right from wrong? Eventually she calms down enough for him to explain where they really are -- not Hell, but the computer system or living mind which the Timewyrm is currently using as a host. Only if they reach the Pit in the centre will they be able to escape.
Outside, the Doctor has the power now to crush the Timewyrm; but doing so will kill Ace as well. With his conscience restored, he cannot do that. He pilots the TARDIS into his own inner landscape<ref>According to the [[First Doctor]], [[The Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] was a [[metaphysical engine]], meaning that along with traveling through space and time, it was also capable of entering into a person's mind. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Every Day (short story)|Every Day]]'')</ref>, and confronts the Timewyrm there, and offers it not death, but peace. In terror, it destroys Chad Boyle to unleash its full power on the Doctor. He locates the humanity inside, [[Qataka]], the woman it once was, and offers it peace. Qataka agrees, and he absorbs her into himself. The Timewyrm's power, now a facet of the universe itself, becomes dormant. The Doctor and Ace return to the church, and he releases Qataka's essence into the baby, which the Hutchings will now raise and name Ishtar. Qataka will have her chance at redemption.


Still trying to drive a wedge between the Doctor and Ace, the Timewyrm confronts them with the spirits of those whom the Doctor has failed to save, including his former companions Katarina, Sara Kingdom and Adric. Ace leads the Doctor past them into the next zone of the datascape, but to the Doctor’s horror it has been replaced with an idealised Nazi city ruled by Hemmings. The lieutenant is torturing the zone’s former inhabitant, a white-haired man whom the Doctor seems to know. Hemmings now prepares to torture the Doctor, but to Ace’s shock the Doctor begs Hemmings to spare him and take Ace instead. Amused, he does so, and the Doctor is thus given the chance to confer with the prisoner. After helping the Doctor in Mesopotamia, the Prisoner was troubled by dark thoughts, and while meditating upon them he came to realise a terrible truth. Once, he visited an alternate timeline in which England was ruled by a fascist dictatorship -- and he now knows that the leader depicted on their posters wore one of the faces which the Time Lords had offered him at his trial. Overcome by his own demons, he offered little resistance when Hemmings arrived to make the place his own. The Doctor, understanding, joins his mind to the Prisoner’s, to get a message to the outside world while they still can.
The Doctor and Ace return the church to Earth, where the explosion never happened, now that the Timewyrm is removed. They spend some time wrapping up loose ends, obtaining the baby from a lab and placing it with Emily, stopping the childhood version of Chad Boyle from killing childhood Ace [and realising that Chad turns out well in the end], and finally, departing. Trelaw, meanwhile, buries Hemmings' head, and pondering the outcome of it all.


Peter, still trying to comprehend what is happening, points out that although Saul has detected no signs of life within the Doctor, his eyelids are still twitching, as though he is dreaming. Saul finds a tune running through his head, a complex melody like an epic poem or mathematics set to music -- and as he hums it, nobody notices that the gemstone is pulsing in time to the beat, or that even the baby seems to be responding to it. Peter realises that the beat represents a chaos equation, and is able to calculate a response which Saul hums. He receives another verse in response, which seems to be instructing them to find a severed human head outside the church. Saul locates and telekinetically transports the head of Lieutenant Hemmings into the church, and despite Trelaw’s objections, Saul and Emily try to communicate with the life inside the dormant brain. This draws Hemmings out of the datascape and back into his own severed head, where he dies -- but his removal throws the datascape into chaos, and as the Timewyrm scrambles to regain control, the Doctor and the Prisoner escape and make for the border. There, a Ferryman wearing a floppy hat and long multi-coloured scarf is waiting to convey the Doctor to the Pit.
== Characters ==
* [[Seventh Doctor|The Doctor]]
* [[Ace]]
* [[Timewyrm]]
* [[George (Timewyrm: Revelation)|George]]
* [[Chad Boyle]]
* [[Marshall (Timewyrm: Revelation)|Marshall]]
* [[Emily Hutchings]]
* [[Peter Hutchings]]
* [[Ernest Trelaw]]
* [[The Hermit]]
* [[Saul]]
* [[Anthony Rupert Hemmings]]
* [[Death (mythology)|Death]]


Ace, lost in the chaos, awakens to find herself in a picture-perfect world with a loving family and cool friends. All she does all day is talk about boys, fashions and music -- and to keep this world, all she has to do is ignore the people begging for money on the street corner, and the gang of white youths assaulting a Pakistani girl outside the disco. But she can’t stand by and let the injustice continue without challenging it; she is not Dorothy, she is Ace. She drives off the white youths, recognising the girl as her old friend Manisha, and as she beats her anger out on the wall of the disco, the blood from her hand reveals a door. She enters, seeking the Doctor, and as the world collapses behind her, torn down by her anger, the Third Doctor -- a prisoner no longer -- begins to rebuild it in his own image once again.
== Worldbuilding ==
=== Books ===
* The Timewyrm tried to read the ''[[Green Book of Gallifrey]]'' and the ''[[Black Book of Gallifrey]]''.


In the wasteland around the Pit, the Doctor is confronted by Chad Boyle, who stabs him in the side with a sword. Ace arrives and drives Chad off, but the Doctor has already suffered a fatal wound. As she carries him to the Pit, he tells her that the Timewyrm still does not understand its true nature; as a living function of the Universe, its form is shaped by fractal equations, which the Doctor has used without its knowledge. In the church, as the Doctor’s physical body begins to die, the amulet expands into a portal to the Time Vortex, and Saul realises that the poem he is intuiting can be used to calculate a safe path through. If Peter helps him with the equation, then Saul can guide Emily through the Vortex to rescue the Doctor. Emily accepts the responsibility.
=== The Doctor ===
* The Doctor feels immense guilt over the deaths of [[Katarina]], [[Sara Kingdom]] and [[Adric]].
* The Doctor makes the sign of the [[Horns of Rassilon]] with his fingers.


Ace takes the Doctor to a bridge over the Pit, where the Timewyrm is waiting for him to die. It reveals to Ace at last that they are inside the Doctor’s own mind; the Timewyrm planted a seed of itself within him when he summoned his third incarnation to the surface in Mesopotamia. By sending Ace, a familiar presence, into the Doctor’s mind, it was able to access parts of his psyche which he had blocked from it, and thus channelled the burst of psychic energy which brought Saul to the Moon. When the Doctor followed Ace into his own mind to rescue her, he became vulnerable to the Timewyrm’s attacks, and when he dies, the Timewyrm will channel the psychic energy of his death through Saul and crash the Moon into the Earth. Billions of timelines will be destroyed, and the Timewyrm will gorge itself upon the energy and grow more powerful still. In the Doctor’s body, it will then travel back in Time to have Chad kill Ace as a child -- and the fact that she can remember this happening seems to prove that the Timewyrm’s plans will succeed.
=== The Doctors as they appear within the Seventh Doctor's mind ===
* The [[First Doctor]] is the librarian and keeper of the gardens.
* The Seventh Doctor is sometimes terrified of the [[Third Doctor]]. He is haunted by the realisation that the [[Third Doctor (Inferno Earth)|Leader]] of the [[Republic of Great Britain|British Republic]] was [[Third Doctor (Inferno Earth)|his counterpart]].
* The [[Fourth Doctor]] is the ferryman.
* The [[Fifth Doctor]] is enchained in the pit, but is freed by Ace. He is the Doctor's conscience.


But just as the Timewyrm appears to have triumphed, a shining staircase descends from the sky, bringing Emily with it, and while the Timewyrm is distracted the Doctor uses the last of his strength to fling it into the Pit. He bathes himself in the water cascading down the staircase, a representation of the psychic power flooding from Saul, and the damage to his virtual body is instantly healed. This has all been a complex game of the Doctor’s, and they have one chance to win. But the Doctor still has not dealt with his own guilt and fear of failure, and as he, Ace and Emily flee up the staircase, the Doctor’s personal dead rise from the Pit and pursue them. Ace falls into their hands, and, realising that the Doctor will be dragged back if he tries to save her, she gives herself up to them, releasing the Doctor into the Vortex tunnel. But once his mind and body are reunited in the church, he faces an agonising choice, for he has gambled and lost. Knowing that the Timewyrm had invaded his mind, he had concentrated on building up his mental defenses until he was ready to set a trap for it. Using Ace as bait, he tricked the Timewyrm into committing all of its resources to a battle within his mind. Now, thanks to Saul and Emily, he has escaped, and the Timewyrm is trapped in his mind with no way out. But so is Ace -- and if the Doctor crushes the Timewyrm out of existence as he had planned, then Ace will die as well. Yet what other choice does he have?
=== Gallifrey ===
* [[Gallifrey]]'s highest peak is [[Mount Lung|Mount Cadon]]. The [[Prydonian]] Academy is on its slopes.


Ace is released by the dead, who tell her that to save herself and them, she must descend into the Pit of the Doctor’s subconscious. He has buried his conscience out of what he believes to be necessity, but it is his failure to acknowledge and deal with his guilt which keeps the dead in torment within his mind. Ace descends into the Pit, where she finds the Fifth Doctor tied to a tree as punishment for refusing to join the others in their fight. The Timewyrm is there as well, with Chad Boyle, waiting for the Doctor to kill them -- knowing that his guilt over Ace’s death will haunt him, and cause his memories to resurrect the Timewyrm once again. Chad tries to stop Ace from freeing the Fifth Doctor, but when she prepares to fight she finds her memories fading away again and realises that this is just what the Timewyrm wants. Instead, she forgives Chad, and looks past his bullying exterior to what he really is -- a frightened child who has had enough and just wants to go home. Ace releases the Fifth Doctor, restoring the conscience which the Doctor had tried to bury; but the enraged Timewyrm summons archetypal horrors from the Doctor’s collective unconscious and sets them upon Ace and Chad…
=== Individuals ===
 
* [[Johnny Chess]] was reviewed in the ''NME'' - 18th July 1998.
The Doctor finds that he cannot bring himself to kill Ace; instead, he will risk all that there is to find another way. Telling the others to wait in the church, he pilots the TARDIS into the interface between imagination and reality, to an arena within his own mind where the Timewyrm is waiting for him. To its shock, however, it finds that it cannot harm him unless he wishes it; he had only allowed it to do so earlier to convince it that it was winning. He comes now not to kill it, but to offer it peace. Terrified by what he promises, the Timewyrm destroys Chad’s body, bursting out of it to attack the Doctor -- but he stands up to the attack, reaches into the archetype that the Timewyrm has become, and finds the human life at its core… Qataka, who is tired and just wants to go home. The Doctor takes her essence into himself, and as the Timewyrm settles into dormancy within the structure of the Universe, he uses its power to change history on Earth and ensure that Cheldon Bonniface is not destroyed. Nobody need die because of his battle. He then pilots the TARDIS back to the church, which has returned to Earth, and as Ace wakes, he places the essence of Qataka’s life within the baby. Peter and Emily will raise her as their own, and will name her Ishtar.
* Ace's fear of [[clown]]s is mentioned, as well as her having a lock of [[Cheetah Person]] fur in her jacket.
 
* [[Shreela]] and [[Midge (Survival)|Midge]] are thought of and there is a vague reference to [[Manisha]], Ace's friend whom she mentioned when she was at [[Gabriel Chase]].
As soon as the Doctor has recovered, he and Ace clean up the loose ends from the battle. In a laboratory in the future, genetically blank babies are being grown without sensory input for use as experimental subjects; the Doctor kidnaps one and takes it back to the church to drop it off with Emily. He then takes Ace back to Perivale, where she stops Chad from killing her younger self. Having done this, she recalls that Chad grew up, sorted himself out and got a good job -- at least, he did now. The Doctor and Ace depart for new adventures, as Trelaw buries the head of Lieutenant Hemmings and ponders the lesson which the Doctor has learned -- a lesson which his old hermit mentor taught him long ago, and which it seems he finally understands.
* The essence of the Timewyrm is placed in a baby by the Doctor and given to Emily and Peter Hutchings, with the name [[Timewyrm#As Isthtar Hutchings|Ishtar Hutchings]].
* Peter Hutchings is a [[Cambridge University]] Mathematics professor.
* The Doctor mentions having met [[Sherlock Holmes]].


==Characters==
=== Music ===
*[[Seventh Doctor |The Doctor]]
* Ace is a fan of the [[Happy Mondays]].
**Dances with [[Death]].
**Is called [[Ka Faraq Gatri]] / Destroyer of Worlds by the Daleks for destroying Skaro.
**The Doctor's mind has seven regions for his past and present selves.


*[[Ace]]
=== Psychic powers ===
**In an alternate timeline Chad Boyle bludgens her with a brick (killing her).
* Emily Hutchings is mildly [[telepathic]].
**Ace also walks out onto the surface of the moon; her lungs explode.
* Saul pushes Hemmings' head along the surface of the moon through [[telekinesis]] alone.


*[[Timewyrm]]
=== Species ===
**Will always exist in some form.
* The Doctor is called Ka Faraq Gatri / Destroyer of Worlds by the [[Dalek]]s for destroying [[Skaro]].
**Its essence is placed in a baby by the Doctor and given to Emily and Peter Hutchings, with the name [[Ishtar Hutchings]].


*[[Chad Boyle]]
=== Timeline ===
**A childhood bully of Ace's.
* In an [[alternate timeline]] [[Chad Boyle]] bludgeoned a young [[Ace]] with a brick, killing her.


*[[Emily Hutchings]]
== Notes ==
**Mildly telepathic.
**She's an old friend of the Doctor.
**Has decided to become a novelist.
 
*[[Peter Hutchings]]
**Cambridge Mathematics professor.
 
*[[Ernest Trelaw]]
**Current vicar of St. Christopher's (Saul).
**Knows about Saul.
 
*[[Saul]]
**A sentient church in Cheldon Bonniface.
**Pushes Hemmings' head along the moon's surface through telekinesis alone.
 
*[[Anthony Rupert Hemmings]]
 
*[[Death]]
**Is created by the Timewyrm.
 
'''The Doctors as they appear within the Seventh Doctor's mind'''
*[[First Doctor]]
**Is the librarian and keeper of the gardens.
*[[Second Doctor]]
*[[Third Doctor]]
**The seventh Doctor is sometimes terrified of him.
**Is haunted by the realisation that the dictator in the 'Inferno' Earth was his counterpart.
*[[Fourth Doctor]]
**The ferryman.
*[[Fifth Doctor]]
**Is enchained in the pit, but is freed by Ace.
**He is the Doctor's conscience.
 
==References==
* The Doctor has visited [[Cheldon Bonniface]] several times.
 
* The Doctor feels immense guilt over the deaths of: [[Katarina]], [[Sara Kingdom]] and [[Adric]].
 
* [[Gallifrey]]'s highest peak is [[Mount Cadon]], the [[Prydonian]] Academy is on its slopes.
 
* The Timewyrm tried to read [[The Green Book of Gallifrey]] and the [[Red Book of Gallifrey]].
 
* The [[Dalek]]s call the Timewyrm [[Golyan Ak Tana]], the twister of paths.
 
* [[Johnny Chess]] was reviewed in the ''NME'' - 18th July 1998.
 
*Aces fear of clowns is mentioned, as well as her having a lock of Cheetah Person fur in her jacket.
 
*Shreela and Midge are thought of and there is a vauge reference to Manisha, Ace's friend who was mentioned in [[Ghost Light]].
 
==Notes==
* This is the final novel in the Timewyrm tetralogy.
* This is the final novel in the Timewyrm tetralogy.
*Paul Cornell based much of ''Timewyrm: Revelation'' on a short story called 'Total Eclipse';
* Paul Cornell based much of ''Timewyrm: Revelation'' on a short story called ''Total Eclipse'', which was originally serialised in the fanzine ''[[Queen Bat (fanzine)|Queen Bat]]'':
 
{{quote|In its original form as 'Total Eclipse', it was the last of a trilogy concerning Saul the sentient church, and two time travellers from a dictatorial future who'd come back to 'fix' the past, with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa getting in the way. (Said Cornell, "They were the TARDIS crew I wrote mostly for.")|[[Paul Cornell]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://voxbomb.com/post/203048207|title=Flashback Interview: Paul Cornell|author=|date of source=2002|website name=Vox Bomb|accessdate=11 August 2011}}</ref>}}
<blockquote>''In its original form as ‘Total Eclipse’, it was the last of a trilogy concerning Saul the sentient church, and two time travelers from a dictatorial future who’d come back to ‘fix’ the past, with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa getting in the way. (Said Cornell, "They were the TARDIS crew I wrote mostly for.")''<ref>[http://www.voxbomb.net/?p=718 Vox Bomb - Flashback Interview: Paul Cornell] <small>accessed 17th June 2009</small></ref></blockquote>
* The name Mount Cadon was invented here. It has been referenced in several other stories.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oocities.org/rico.briggs/reve.html|title=timewyrm: revelation|author= Eric Briggs|coauthors=Paul Cornell|date of source=1999|website name=The Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide|accessdate=11 August 2011}}</ref>
* The cover image ''actually'' happens in this novel
* [[Russell T Davies]] would praise the book in an interview, mentioning that "Paul bloody Cornell gave us ''Doctor Who'', but he made it real. I mean, real people, laid bare, exposing all their anger, passion, and, damn it, nobility." <ref>Doctor Who The Vault </ref>


==Continuity==
== Continuity ==
* Cheldon Bonniface is the location of [[Bernice Summerfield]] and [[Jason Kane]]'s wedding in [[NA]]: ''[[Happy Endings]]''.
* Cheldon Bonniface is the location of [[Bernice Summerfield]] and [[Jason Kane]]'s wedding on [[24 April]] [[2010]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Happy Endings (novel)|Happy Endings]]'')
* The reasons why the [[Sixth Doctor]] doesn't make an appearance are revealed in [[NA]]: ''[[Head Games]]''.
* The reasons why the [[Sixth Doctor]] does not make an appearance are revealed in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Head Games (novel)|Head Games]]''.
* The Timewyrm claims to have been around during: [[DW]]: ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan]], [[Earthshock]], [[Ghost Light]] and [[The Curse of Fenric]]''
* The Timewyrm claims to have been around during the events of [[TV]]: ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)|The Daleks' Master Plan]]'', ''[[Earthshock (TV story)|Earthshock]]'', ''[[Ghost Light (TV story)|Ghost Light]]'', and ''[[The Curse of Fenric (TV story)|The Curse of Fenric]]''.
* Lt Hemmings last appeared in: [[NA]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus]]'' and puts in an appearance in ''[[Happy Endings]]''.
* Lt Hemmings last appeared in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)|Timewyrm: Exodus]]'' and puts in an appearance in ''[[Happy Endings (novel)|Happy Endings]]''.
* The Doctor recalls his [[Second Doctor|second incarnation]] meeting him in a dream. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Apocalypse (novel)|Timewyrm: Apocalypse]]'')


==Timeline==
== Cover gallery ==
*This story occurs after [[NA]]: ''[[Timewyrm: Apocalypse]]''
<gallery position="center" captionalign="center" hideaddbutton="true">
*This story occurs before [[DWM]]: ''[[Cathedral Heart]]''
File:NA004 revelation.jpg|Original cover
File:NA004 revelation textless cover.jpg|Textless cover
</gallery>


==External Links==
== Footnotes ==
*{{dwrefguide|who_na04.htm|Timewyrm: Revelation}}
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20050224144938/http://www.geocities.com/rico.briggs/reve.html Bewildering Reference Guide entry for '''Timewyrm: Revelation''', with notes by the author] via [http://www.archive.org/web/web.php Internet Archive: Wayback Machine]
*{{whoniverse|NA04.php|Timewyrm: Revelation}}
 
==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
{{dwrefguide|who_na04.htm|Timewyrm: Revelation}}
* {{whoniverse|na04|Timewyrm: Revelation}}
* [http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/cloister/revelation.htm The Cloister Library: '''Timewyrm: Revelation''']
* [http://www.oocities.com/rico.briggs/reve.html Bewildering Reference Guide entry for '''Timewyrm: Revelation''', with notes by the author]
* [http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/tsv28/paulcornell.html A Conversation with Paul Cornell by David Bishop (Interview) - TSV 28]
* [http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/tsv48/paulcornell.html Paul Cornell by Paul Scoones (Interview) - TSV 48]
{{NA}}
{{TitleSort}}


{{Virgin New Adventure Series Box | before = [[Timewyrm: Apocalypse]] | after = [[Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible]]}}
[[Category:Stories set in Perivale]]
[[Category:Stories set in 1992]]
[[Category:Stories set at Christmas]]
[[Category:Seventh Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Seventh Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Virgin New Adventure Novels]]
[[Category:First Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Timewyrm arc]]
[[Category:Third Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Stories set in Norfolk]]
[[Category:Fourth Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Stories set in 1992]]
[[Category:Fifth Doctor novels]]
[[Category:1991 novels]]
[[Category:Stories set in Perivale]]

Latest revision as of 20:31, 10 April 2024

RealWorld.png

Timewyrm: Revelation was the fourth book in the New Adventures series, and the fourth and final book in the Timewyrm arc. It was written by Paul Cornell and featured the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

The parishioners of Cheldon Bonniface walk to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1992. Snow is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?

Some years earlier, in a playground in Perivale, Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He's going to get that creepy Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting Dorothy's skull. She dies instantly.

The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Early in young Dorothy McShane's life (or Dotty, as she is called) a young boy named Chad Boyle picks up a brick on the playground and hits her in the head with it, killing her instantly. Some time later, now awaiting trial and remanded to his mother's care, he is spirited away by a man in a police box. Elsewhere (and probably elsewhen, though still in modern times), in the village of Cheldon Bonniface, there is a church…and it's alive. Or rather, it's permanently inhabited by an energy being named Saul, who doesn't really even know his own origin. With the reverend Ernest Trelaw, Saul is a force for good in his community, and suddenly, he is faced with an odd couple. Peter Hutchings is a mathematician of considerable skill; his wife Emily is a scholar of music, and unknown to her, possesses a strong psychic ability. They cannot have children; and so Emily is stunned when, during a service, the Doctor runs in and places a baby in her hands, then runs back out.

Ace is disturbed. The Doctor has been acting strange, leaving the TARDIS at night in random places, setting up future gambits, but something is not right about it. Now, they travel to Cheldon Bonniface, but in the Victorian era, where the Doctor is known. Ace is attacked by a child-sized astronaut, and runs away and finds herself on the moon. The astronaut is revealed to be her childhood bully, Chad Boyle; he sends her mind away and places her body in the church, but Saul is not present in this time. Meanwhile the Doctor realises the entire village is a fake, and meets with an old adversary, Lieutenant Hemmings of the Freikorps (last seen in Timewyrm: Exodus, boarding a TARDIS). Hemmings, controlled by the Timewyrm, fails to capture the Doctor, who escapes in his TARDIS. The Timewyrm inhabits Boyle's body, and kills Hemmings, sending his mind to the same place as Ace's.

Ace, she finds, is in Hell. Or so it is portrayed, anyway; she has her doubts. Some things are inconsistent: A library, a peaceful flower garden, and a strange room with thirteen stalls, six of which are filled with indeterminate, but humanoid, forms. Something claiming to be her rational side (but in fact is the Timewyrm) uses her to unleash a massive amount of power, vaporizing the real-world Cheldon Bonniface and all its people, and yanking the church (with Saul, Trelaw, the Hutchings, and the baby still inside) to the surface of the moon. Ace's body appears inside the church as well, on the altar, still alive but without her mind inside. The Doctor arrives inside the church, as does the Timewyrm, who forces him to confront a specter of death; but he is not moved. The Doctor enlists the help of Trelaw, Saul, and the Hutchings (leaving Emily in particular with a strange amulet) and then allows the Timewyrm to send his mind to the same place as Ace's, leaving his body in the church. The Timewyrm itself then abandons Boyle's body and follows the Doctor in.

Ace meets the Librarian, an old man who shows her that it is not Hell after all. Rather, it's the interior landscape of a mind that the Timewyrm has occupied as a base of operations. The Doctor joins her, and rescues her from torment; he learns that she is vacillating between maturity and childhood, and realises that it is because of the conflict between himself and the Timewyrm. If the Timewyrm wins, then, among other things, the vision of Chad Boyle killing Dorothy will come true, eliminating her entire adult life. If the Doctor wins, time will be restored. But the Doctor is losing.

Ace and the Doctor are confronted by the Doctor's personal demons — the ghosts of many who have fallen in service to him. Leading the pack are three of the Doctor's former companions: Katarina, Sara Kingdom, and Adric, all of whom gave their lives in service to the Doctor. The Doctor and Ace escape this vision, and are captured by Hemmings, who is torturing a prisoner. He threatens the Doctor, who gives up Ace to be tortured instead, but this allows him to confer with the prisoner. The Prisoner admits that he failed to resist Hemmings because he was troubled by his own demons. They join minds and send a message to the group in the church.

Together, Emily, Peter, and Saul interpret the message, which leads them to recover Hemmings' severed head from the moon. They are able to force Hemmings' consciousness back into the head, removing him from the internal landscape and freeing Ace, and letting Hemmings finally die for real. This allows the Doctor and the Third Doctor to escape imprisonment. They meet a cryptic ferryman, who takes them to the area around the mindscape's central pit. Ace, now caught in illusions of the idyllic life she wanted as a child, eventually frees herself and joins the Doctor; the Third Doctor turns back to monitor her progress.

At the pit, Chad Boyle confronts them, and stabs the Doctor — a mortal wound, but he will be slow in dying. Ace drives Boyle off, and helps the Doctor down to the bridge over the pit. She confronts the Timewyrm, which reveals its plan: this is not just any mindscape, but the Doctor's, where she hid herself long ago in Mesopotamia. As well, she has been able to exercise control briefly on several occasions, and has used the Doctor and the TARDIS to set the pieces of this complex plan in place; hence, the Doctor's mysterious nighttime excursions. If she can destroy the Doctor here, she will take over his body and powers, and consume the universe. Meanwhile, the group in the church, still following the Doctor's message, are stunned when the amulet opens into a portal into the Time Vortex. Working together, they find a path leading to the Doctor and Ace, and Emily goes through to rescue them. She successfully brings out the Doctor, but Ace is trapped. Ace is confronted by the dead companions again, who tell her to go into the pit and free the Doctor's conscience. She finds it in the form of the Doctor's incarnation two regenerations ago, tied to a tree; she frees him, restoring the Doctor's conscience. Enraged, the Timewyrm attacks her, and Chad Boyle as well.

Outside, the Doctor has the power now to crush the Timewyrm; but doing so will kill Ace as well. With his conscience restored, he cannot do that. He pilots the TARDIS into his own inner landscape[1], and confronts the Timewyrm there, and offers it not death, but peace. In terror, it destroys Chad Boyle to unleash its full power on the Doctor. He locates the humanity inside, Qataka, the woman it once was, and offers it peace. Qataka agrees, and he absorbs her into himself. The Timewyrm's power, now a facet of the universe itself, becomes dormant. The Doctor and Ace return to the church, and he releases Qataka's essence into the baby, which the Hutchings will now raise and name Ishtar. Qataka will have her chance at redemption.

The Doctor and Ace return the church to Earth, where the explosion never happened, now that the Timewyrm is removed. They spend some time wrapping up loose ends, obtaining the baby from a lab and placing it with Emily, stopping the childhood version of Chad Boyle from killing childhood Ace [and realising that Chad turns out well in the end], and finally, departing. Trelaw, meanwhile, buries Hemmings' head, and pondering the outcome of it all.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Books[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctors as they appear within the Seventh Doctor's mind[[edit] | [edit source]]

Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

Music[[edit] | [edit source]]

Psychic powers[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Emily Hutchings is mildly telepathic.
  • Saul pushes Hemmings' head along the surface of the moon through telekinesis alone.

Species[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Doctor is called Ka Faraq Gatri / Destroyer of Worlds by the Daleks for destroying Skaro.

Timeline[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • This is the final novel in the Timewyrm tetralogy.
  • Paul Cornell based much of Timewyrm: Revelation on a short story called Total Eclipse, which was originally serialised in the fanzine Queen Bat:

In its original form as 'Total Eclipse', it was the last of a trilogy concerning Saul the sentient church, and two time travellers from a dictatorial future who'd come back to 'fix' the past, with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa getting in the way. (Said Cornell, "They were the TARDIS crew I wrote mostly for.")Paul Cornell[2]

  • The name Mount Cadon was invented here. It has been referenced in several other stories.[3]
  • The cover image actually happens in this novel
  • Russell T Davies would praise the book in an interview, mentioning that "Paul bloody Cornell gave us Doctor Who, but he made it real. I mean, real people, laid bare, exposing all their anger, passion, and, damn it, nobility." [4]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cover gallery[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Original cover

    Original cover

  • Textless cover

    Textless cover

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ According to the First Doctor, the TARDIS was a metaphysical engine, meaning that along with traveling through space and time, it was also capable of entering into a person's mind. (PROSE: Every Day)
  2. ↑ Flashback Interview: Paul Cornell. Vox Bomb (2002). Retrieved on 11 August 2011.
  3. ↑ Eric Briggs; Paul Cornell (1999). timewyrm: revelation. The Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide. Retrieved on 11 August 2011.
  4. ↑ Doctor Who The Vault

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

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1997
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