Harry Sullivan's War (novel): Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:14, 5 February 2024

Harry Sullivan's War

Key crew

Publisher:

Target Books

Writer:

Ian Marter

Cover by:

David McAllister

Release details

Release number:

2

Release date:

11 September 1986

Format:

Paperback Book, 148 Pages

ISBN:

ISBN 0-426-20250-3

The Companions of Doctor Who
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Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma	K9 and Company

Publication order
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Fury from the Deep	The Celestial Toymaker

Harry Sullivan's War was a novel that featured Harry Sullivan. It was written by Ian Marter.

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

It is ten years since Harry Sullivan left UNIT and gave up his travels in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Sarah.

Since then he has been engaged in top secret work, developing antidotes to nerve toxins. But when he is transferred to Yarra in the Hebrides to work on weapons research, he has severe misgivings. For one thing, it goes against much of what he believes in. For another, someone is out to kill Harry Sullivan.

Who wants Harry safely out of the way? What significance does a painting by Van Gogh have in the affair? And can Harry's old friend, the Brigadier, really be involved in a scheme which threatens the security of the Western World?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

It's been ten years since Harry left UNIT.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Author Ian Marter played Harry Sullivan on television. To date, the late actor-turned-writer remains one of six people to have written a Doctor Who-related novel featuring the character whom he played on the series (John Barrowman wrote Exodus Code, Tom Baker wrote Scratchman, Sophie Aldred wrote At Childhood's End, Alex Kingston wrote The Ruby's Curse, and Matthew Waterhouse wrote the audio novels Watchers and Prisoners of London) Marter also wrote novelisations of two stories featuring Harry, The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment. The novel Harry Sullivan's War was first published in September 1986, a month before Marter died.
According to his Myth Makers video interview, Ian Marter had planned to kill Harry off at the end of the story, but was prevented from doing so by the publishers, who wanted the character to be left alive for a possible sequel.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Brigadier tells Harry that he is now teaching Maths at Brendon Public School. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
Harry refers to his encounters with the Daleks, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) the Cybermen (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen) and the Zygons. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
MI5 are aware of Davros, due to his involvement in the Shoreditch Incident in November 1963. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
Esther Bland occasionally visited Harry while he was posted at the Faslane submarine base in the early 1970s. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)

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

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Infobox Other Novels|
+{{title dab away}}
-novel name= Harry Sullivan's War |
+{{real world}}
-image= [[Image:Harry_Sullivans_War.jpg|250px]]|
+{{Infobox Story SMW
-series=[[Companions of Doctor Who]] |
+|image= Harry Sullivans War.jpg
-number= 2 |
+|series = [[The Companions of Doctor Who]]
-featuring= [[Harry Sullivan]] |
+|number= 2
-enemy=  |
+|main character= [[Harry Sullivan]]
-year= |
+|featuring= Sarah Jane Smith{{!}}Sarah
-writer= [[Ian Marter]] |
+|featuring2= The Brigadier
-publisher= [[Target Books]] |
+|enemy= [[Zbigniew Brodsky]]
-release date= October [[1986]] |
+|setting= [[England]], [[Yarra]], [[Scotland]] and [[Paris]], [[May]] [[1983]]
-format= Paperback Book, ? Pages |
+|writer= Ian Marter
-isbn= ISBN 0-426-20250-3 |
+|cover = [[David McAllister]]
-previous story= [[Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma]] |
+|publisher= Target Books
-next story= }}
+|release date= 11 September 1986
+|format= Paperback Book, 148 Pages
+|isbn= ISBN 0-426-20250-3
+|prev= Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma (novel)
+|next= K9 and Company (novelisation)
+|series2 = Publication order
+|prev2 = Fury from the Deep (novelisation)
+|next2 = The Celestial Toymaker (novelisation)
+}}{{prose stub}}
+'''''Harry Sullivan's War''''' was a novel that featured [[Harry Sullivan]]. It was written by [[Ian Marter]].
-==Publisher's Summary==
+== Publisher's summary ==
-It is ten years since [[Harry Sullivan]] left [[UNIT]] and gave up his travels in [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] with [[Fourth Doctor|the Doctor]] and [[Sarah Jane Smith|Sarah Jane]].
+It is ten years since [[Harry Sullivan]] left [[UNIT]] and gave up his travels in [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] with [[Fourth Doctor|the Doctor]] and [[Sarah Jane Smith|Sarah]].
 Since then he has been engaged in top secret work, developing antidotes to [[nerve toxin]]s. But when he is transferred to [[Yarra]] in the [[Hebrides]] to work on weapons research, he has severe misgivings. For one thing, it goes against much of what he believes in. For another, someone is out to kill Harry Sullivan.
-Who wants Harry safely out of the way? What significance does a painting by [[Van Gogh]] have in the affair? And can Harry's old friend, [[the Brigadier]], really be involved in a scheme which threatens the security of the Western World?
+Who wants Harry safely out of the way? What significance does a painting by [[Vincent van Gogh|Van Gogh]] have in the affair? And can Harry's old friend, [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart|the Brigadier]], really be involved in a scheme which threatens the security of the Western World?
-On the eve of his 41st birthday, Harry Sullivan learns that, despite his moral objections to the work, he is to be transferred to NATO's chemical weapons development programme on Yarra. An inexplicable attempt is then made on his life by an East Indian strongman, and while recovering from the incident, Harry attends a Van Gogh exhibition and meets a young woman, Samantha, who seems to know more about him than she should. Samantha, who claims to do volunteer work for the Anti-Chemical Hazard Environment Society, invites him to visit her some time. While trying to sort out his feelings about his new posting, Harry accepts an invitation from his friend Teddy Bland, who is himself a senior researcher at Yarra, to spend a weekend at his home in the Hebrides. On his way back, however, Harry is run off the road by a Land Rover, and awakens in Castle Mackie, home of American neurologist Alexander Shire; there, he is shocked to overhear what appears to be his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart calmly discussing classified details about UNIT operations. Harry then spots a mud-spattered Land Rover parked outside the castle and flees. Later, he meets Lethbridge-Stewart and tries to make an off-hand inquiry about Castle Mackie, but although he admits owning a cottage near the castle, Lethbridge-Stewart claims never to have visited the upstart Shire. Harry remains unaware that, while he was unconscious, Shire administered a dose of sodium pentothal to him and he revealed all he knew about his forthcoming work at Yarra...
+== Plot ==
+''to be added''
-Despite his reservations, Harry accepts his new posting at Yarra, but one day he accidentally overdoses a researcher with the antidote to the toxins she's been developing. Much to his surprise, this seems to cure her recurring migraines, and some time later she announces that, after months of trying with her husband, she is finally going to give birth. Harry begins to research these potentially beneficial side-effects of the antitoxin, but neglects his official work and attracts the wrath of the establishment's director, Conrad Gold. When three ampoules of the deadly nerve toxin Attila 305 disappear, Gold immediately orders the reluctant Teddy Bland to begin investigating Harry. Meanwhile, Samantha contacts Harry again and invites him to visit her at her home -- Castle Mackie. He is surprised to learn that Alexander Shire is her father, and, unaware that he is under investigation, accepts her invitation in order to learn more. Upon arriving at Castle Mackie, Harry stumbles across evidence that Shire apparently has access to surveillance devices planted in Yarra, and meets another of Shire's guests -- East Indian strongman Rudolf Rainbow, the man who tried to kill him on his birthday.
+== Characters ==
+* [[Harry Sullivan]]
+* [[Sarah Jane Smith]]
+* [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]]
+* [[Zbigniew Brodsky]]
+* [[Samantha Shire]]
+* [[Curly (Harry Sullivan's War)|Curly]]
+* [[Teddy Bland]]
+* [[Conrad Gold]]
+* [[Rudolf Rainbow]]
+* [[Alexander Shire]]
+* [[Esther Bland]]
+* [[Waldo Tedescu]]
+* Rear-Admiral [[de Longpre]]
-Samantha playfully pushes Harry into the castle pool, soaking his clothes, and Rainbow then locks Harry into the changing room. That night, still wet and shivering, Harry is taken from the castle and driven to a deserted croft by a stranger named Zbigniew Brodsky, who demands that Harry tell him everything he knows about the Attila antitoxin. When Harry refuses to do so, Brodsky flings one of the stolen ampoules into the croft and drives off, leaving Harry alone with the shattered ampoule in order to see its effects upon him. Harry wraps up the ampoule in his dampened blazer, hoping that the water will absorb the vapour, but he is already beginning to feel dizzy. Samantha unexpectedly arrives, looking for him, but she apparently falls victim to the toxin and loses consciousness; too weak to pull her to safety, Harry takes her car and drives to Lethbridge-Stewart's cottage to seek help. Lethbridge-Stewart is not there, however, and Harry finds map co-ordinates scribbled on a notepad by the phone. Lethbridge-Stewart's butler, Curly, turns out to be involved in the conspiracy, but Harry manages to evade him and flee, evading both Brodsky and his enforcer, Rudolf Rainbow. Brodsky, however, is convinced that Harry's survival means that he has vital information about the antitoxin, and is determined to extract it from him...
+== Worldbuilding ==
+* It's been ten years since Harry left [[UNIT]].
-Harry gets back to his flat in London and sleeps, exhausted, for 19 hours. When he awakens, he prepares to report his experience to his superior, Rear-Admiral de Longpre, but before he can do so he is contacted by Shire, who claims that Samantha has fallen victim to the toxin and needs the antidote to survive. Uncertain what to do, Harry is about to explain all to de Longpre when he is arrested by Special Branch and charged with treason; the remains of the stolen ampoule have been found wrapped in his blazer. Sarah Jane Smith visits him in prison and reveals that she's recently interviewed Shire and Samantha for a piece she's writing on the anti-bioweapons brigade -- and that although this occurred after Harry's experience, Samantha was perfectly healthy. But now they have both disappeared, and so has Lethbridge-Stewart, which seems to implicate him in the conspiracy as well. Harry is determined to solve the mystery, but his solicitor advises him to pay more attention to his defense; not only has he been linked to the theft of the ampoules, but to the Van Gogh Appreciation Society, a front for the European Anarchist Revolution and its leader, known terrorist Zbigniew Brodsky.
+== Notes ==
+* Author [[Ian Marter]] played [[Harry Sullivan]] on television. To date, the late actor-turned-writer remains one of six people to have written a ''Doctor Who''-related novel featuring the character whom he played on the series ([[John Barrowman]] wrote ''[[Exodus Code (novel)|Exodus Code]]'', [[Tom Baker]] wrote ''[[Scratchman (novelisation)|Scratchman]]'', [[Sophie Aldred]] wrote ''[[At Childhood's End (novel)|At Childhood's End]]'', [[Alex Kingston]] wrote ''[[The Ruby's Curse (novel)|The Ruby's Curse]]'', and [[Matthew Waterhouse]] wrote the audio novels ''[[Watchers (audio story)|Watchers]]'' and ''[[Prisoners of London (audio story)|Prisoners of London]]'') Marter also wrote novelisations of two stories featuring Harry, ''[[The Ark in Space (TV story)|The Ark in Space]]'' and ''[[The Sontaran Experiment (TV story)|The Sontaran Experiment]]''. The novel ''Harry Sullivan's War'' was first published in September 1986, a month before Marter died.
+* According to his ''[[Myth Makers]]'' video interview, Ian Marter had planned to kill Harry off at the end of the story, but was prevented from doing so by the publishers, who wanted the character to be left alive for a possible sequel.
-While waiting to be remanded for trial, Harry tries to find the location of the map co-ordinates he recalls seeing in Lethbridge-Stewart's cottage, and finds them in the Summer Isles. He is removed from prison for interrogation by the British security forces, but their van is attacked and he is "rescued" by Brodsky and Shire. They believe that he now has no choice but to hand over the antidote to them, but while their guard is down he escapes and heads for the Summer Isles. There, on an ancient barrow known as the Bryg a Dyr, he spots Conrad Gold burying something beneath a rock, and once Gold has gone, Harry unearths the package to find that it contains microfiches of the classified work done at Yarra. Realizing that Gold is the real traitor, Harry contacts Bland and convinces him to arrange a stakeout at the Bryg a Dyr to catch the real criminals. He then leaves a note for the gang, ostensibly from Gold, telling them to meet Saturday at dawn for samples of the antidote, and contacts Gold, claiming to have photographs of Gold planting the stolen microfiches and threatening to blackmail him. At Saturday before dawn Bland and a Special Branch team arrive, and despite their suspicion of Harry he manages to convince them to wait for the conspirators to arrive. When they do arrive, however, when Harry sees the angry Brodsky slapping Samantha for some failure on her part, and is unable to stand by and allow this. His premature arrival bungles the operation, and most of the conspirators escape, but Gold is captured and Harry's name is thus cleared. Lethbridge-Stewart is eventually found, having been kidnapped by his butler Curly to keep him out of the way.
+== Continuity ==
+* The Brigadier tells Harry that he is now teaching Maths at [[Brendon Public School]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Mawdryn Undead (TV story)|Mawdryn Undead]]'')
+* Harry refers to his encounters with the [[Dalek]]s, ([[TV]]: ''[[Genesis of the Daleks (TV story)|Genesis of the Daleks]]'') the [[Cyberman|Cybermen]] ([[TV]]: ''[[Revenge of the Cybermen (TV story)|Revenge of the Cybermen]]'') and the [[Zygon]]s. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Zygons (TV story)|Terror of the Zygons]]'')
+* [[MI5]] are aware of [[Davros]], due to his involvement in the [[Shoreditch Incident]] in [[November]] [[1963]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)|Remembrance of the Daleks]]'')
+* Esther Bland occasionally visited Harry while he was posted at the Faslane submarine base in the early [[1970s]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Face of the Enemy (novel)|The Face of the Enemy]]'')
-Harry makes a full report to the Admiralty and is advised to leave the rest of the operation in their hands, but he follows a hunch and attends the annual general meeting of the Van Gogh Appreciation Society at the Eiffel Tower. There, he finds Shire, Samantha and Brodsky, who inform him that he is no longer needed. Harry manages to escape from Rainbow by climbing out onto the struts of the tower, but he is pursued by Brodsky's other enforcer, Romanian acrobat Waldo Tedescu. Tedescu attempts to throw Harry from the Tower, but Harry overpowers him and escapes, and it is Tedescu who falls to his death. Harry returns to London, where Teddy Bland's sister Esther, waiting for him to return, promises she will take care of him.
+== External links ==
+{{dwrefguide|comp02.htm|Harry Sullivan's War}}
-==Characters==
+* {{whoniverse|tg02|Harry Sullivan's War}}
-*[[Harry Sullivan]]
-*[[Sarah Jane Smith]]
-*[[Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart]]
-==References==
-*It's been ten years since Harry left [[UNIT]].
-*[[Zygon]]s are mentioned.
-==Notes==
-''to be added''
-==Continuity==
-''to be added''
-==External Links==
+{{Spin-offs}}
-*[http://www.drwhoguide.com/comp02.htm Doctor Who Reference Guide - Detailed Synopsis: '''Harry Sullivan's War''']
+{{TitleSort}}
-* [http://www.whoniverse.org/discontinuity/COM1.php The Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide to '''Harry Sullivan's War''']
-*[http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecl6nb/OnTarget/1986/harry/86harry.htm On Target listing for ''Harry Sullivan's War'']
-[[Category:Target Novels]]
+[[Category:TC novels]]
+[[Category:1986 novels]]
 [[Category:Stories set in England]]
 [[Category:Stories set in Scotland]]
-[[Category:Stories set in the 1980s]]
+[[Category:Stories set in 1983]]
+[[Category:Sarah Jane Smith novels]]
+[[Category:Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart novels]]
+[[Category:Stories set in Paris]]

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

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

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

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Harry Sullivan's War (novel): Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:14, 5 February 2024

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

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

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

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