The Room With No Doors (novel)

The Room With No Doors
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Chris
Featuring:	Penelope, Joel
Main enemy:	Te Yene Rana
Main setting:	Japan, 1560
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Kate Orman
Cover by:	John Sullivan
Release details
Release number:	59
Release date:	18 February 1997
Format:	Paperback Book; 30 Chapters, 256 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20500-6
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	Eternity Weeps
Next →	Lungbarrow

The Room With No Doors was the fifty-ninth Virgin New Adventures novel. It was the second-last novel in the New Adventures series to feature the Seventh Doctor. It was the last novel to feature just the Seventh Doctor and Chris Cwej pairing.

Publisher's summary

"Dear Doctor", wrote Chris, "I give up".

Swordplay, samurai, demons, magic, aliens, adventure, excitement... Who needs them?

The Doctor and Chris travel to 16th-century Japan, a country gripped by civil war as feudal lords vie for control. Anything could tip the balance of power. So when a god falls out of the sky, everyone wants it.

As villagers are healed and crops grow far too fast, the Doctor and Chris try to find the secret of the miracles — before the two rival armies can start a war over who owns the god.

Chris soon finds himself alone — except for an alien slaver, a time-travelling Victorian inventor, a gang of demons, an old friend with suspicious motives, a village full of innocent bystanders, and several thousand samurai.

Without the Doctor, someone has to take up the challenge of adventure and stop the god from falling into the wrong hands. Someone has to be a hero — but Chris isn't sure he wants to be a hero any more.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Chris Cwej
• Penelope Gate
• Joel Mintz
• Te Yene Rana
• Psychokinetic
• Talker
• Kadoguchi
• Chiyono
• Aoi
• Aoi's father
• Gufuu Kocho
• Kiiro
• Kosen
• Kame
• Umemi

Worldbuilding

Biology

• Regeneration was never meant to be an emergency procedure.

Corporations

• Caxtarid mining corporations have strip mined several worlds.

Culture

• Joel wears a Real Ghostbusters t-shirt.

Individuals

• The death of Liz Shaw weighs heavy on Chris.

History

• Joel tries to advance the Japanese and manipulate history.
• Joel handled the Gaffney Incident.

Organisations

• The Doctor is President of the Intergalactic Flora Society.

Planets

• The Caxatrid's home world is the fourth planet of Lalande 21185.

Species

• Caxtarids (or at least Te Yene Rana) have metallic red hair and eyes.

Time travel

• Penelope Gate's time machine has a Tzun battery powering it.

Notes

• In a sequence cut from this novel, Wolsey was to have succumbed to the dreams plaguing Chris, meeting three other cats in the TARDIS: black, white and red, representing the three gods of Gallifrey. They are joined by the rose-woman later to appear in Lungbarrow.
• Kate Orman contributed a 310-word "missing scene" from the novel to Shelf Life, a charity publication dedicated to Craig Hinton. It portrayed an intimate sexual encounter between Joel and Chris.
• Penelope Gate would return obliquely in the works of Lance Parkin; she was implied in The Infinity Doctors and The Gallifrey Chronicles to be the Doctor's mother.

Continuity

• Joel Mintz first met the Doctor and Chris in PROSE: Return of the Living Dad.
• The Doctor ends this novel thinking about his next of kin and family, leading into PROSE: Lungbarrow.
• Chris thinks about Liz Shaw and her death. (PROSE: Eternity Weeps)
• The Doctor claims to be an Honorary Kang. (TV: Paradise Towers)
• Te Yene Rana tells the Doctor she was transporting Oolian underpants. (PROSE: Original Sin)

Cover Gallery

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  Cover

• 

  Textless cover

• 

  Concept Sketch

External links

• The Room With No Doors at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Room With No Doors at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Room With No Doors