Mission: Impractical (novel)

Mission: Impractical
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Frobisher
Featuring:	Sabalom Glitz, Dibber
Main enemy:	Niccolo Mandell, Sha'ol, Karthakh, Zimmerman
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	David A. McIntee
Release details
Release number:	12
Release date:	8 June 1998
Format:	Paperback Book; 21 Chapters, 280 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-40592-9
BBC Past Doctor Adventures
← Previous	Catastrophea
Next →	Zeta Major

Mission: Impractical was the twelfth novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by David A. McIntee, released 8 June 1998 and featured the Sixth Doctor, Frobisher and Sabalom Glitz.

It was the first BBC Books novel to feature a character created in another medium — Frobisher, who first appeared in Doctor Who Magazine's comic stories alongside the Sixth Doctor and Seventh Doctor. As the cover indicates, this story also features Sabalom Glitz.

Publisher's summary

When daring criminal Jack Chance masterminds the heist of a precious national treasure from the planet Veltroch, it is the first step in a chain of events that could lead to the destruction of two civilisations...

Pursued by bounty hunters, the Sixth Doctor and his shapeshifting companion Frobisher run into old acquaintances Glitz and Dibber — notorious rogues who have become involved in something big: a covert government agency on Vandor Prime is forcing the pair to turn their criminal talents to its own ends.

The Doctor and Frobisher are soon drawn into the mysterious scheme themselves — but what game is truly being played by the authorities? How is the group of Ogron raiders involved? And who is so desperate to see the Doctor dead?

Caught in a web of deceit and pursued by ruthless killers, the Doctor's mission — should he decide to accept it — is to join Glitz's gang and pull off the crime of the century. And failure will result in an interstellar war costing the lives of millions...

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Sixth Doctor
• Frobisher
• Sabalom Glitz
• Dibber
• Jack Chance
• Niccolo Mandell
• Kala Mandell
• Sha'ol
• Karthakh
• Zimmerman
• Brokhal
• Chat
• Liang
• Cronan
• Hoffman
• Monty Kast
• Oskar
• Heera

Worldbuilding

Species

• Sha'ol is a Tzun, while Karthakh is a Veltrochini. By this point, the Tzun Confederacy has been destroyed.

Planets

• The "walking mountains" are located on the planet Haskor. There are one of the Wonders of the Universe.
• Elchur was an agrarian colony until biochemical weapons in an ancient war sterilised its surface.

Notes

• This was the first Doctor Who novel to take place between two issues of Doctor Who Magazine comic strips rather than two television serials. However, the chosen placement of War-Game and Funhouse creates a continuity problem. Events in Funhouse, directly tie into Peri's reintroduction in Abel's Story, featuring an involuntary sabbatical in New York on Earth. The novel may, therefore, be better placed following The Age of Chaos, which reintroduces Frobisher and addresses aspects of the Doctor's trial.
• This was the first full-length story featuring Frobisher to be published in a non-comic medium.
• The title of this story is a reference to Mission: Impossible.
• This story is set between The Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani.

Continuity

• Dibber is killed, which explains why the Doctor does not ask after him on Svartos. (TV: Dragonfire)
• Frobisher thinks about the Wallarians. (TV: Carnival of Monsters)
• The Ninth Doctor and a very tall woman would later see Star Wars in a cinema in Aberystwyth in 1977. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)

External links

• Mission: Impractical at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Mission: Impractical at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Mission: Impractical