Harry Sullivan's War (novel)

Harry Sullivan's War
Main character(s):	Harry Sullivan
Featuring:	Sarah, the Brig
Main enemy:	Zbigniew Brodsky
Main setting:	England, Yarra, Scotland and Paris, May 1983
Key crew
Publisher:	Target Books
Writer:	Ian Marter
Producer:	Morrison Ellis (audiobook reading)
Sound:	Oliver Denman
Read by:	Christopher Naylor
Cover by:	David McAllister
Release details
Release number:	2
Release date:	11 September 1986 (novel) 5 December 2024 (audiobook)
Format:	Paperback, 148 pages Audiobook
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20250-3 (novel) ISBN 9781529924848 (audiobook)
The Companions of Doctor Who
← Previous	Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma
Next →	K9 and Company
Publication order
← Previous	Fury from the Deep
Next →	The Celestial Toymaker
Beyond the Doctor
← Previous	The Penumbra Affair

Harry Sullivan's War was a novel that featured Harry Sullivan. It was written by Ian Marter and published by Target Books on 11 September 1986.

Publisher's summary

Christopher Naylor reads this original novel featuring the Doctor's former companion in his own adventure.

(the above paragraph came from the 2024 audiobook)

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

to be added

Characters

• Harry Sullivan
• Sarah Jane Smith
• Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
• Zbigniew Brodsky
• Samantha Shire
• Curly
• Teddy Bland
• Conrad Gold
• Rudolf Rainbow
• Alexander Shire
• Esther Bland
• Waldo Tedescu
• Rear-Admiral de Longpre

Worldbuilding

• It's been ten years since Harry left UNIT.

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, 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.

Audiobook

It was released as an audiobook on 5 December 2024 as part of the Beyond the Doctor audio series, and the first novel to be released as an audiobook under that banner. It was read by Christopher Naylor.

• 

  Audiobook

Continuity

• 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

• Harry Sullivan's War at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Harry Sullivan's War at The Whoniverse