Set Piece (novel)

Set Piece
Doctor:	[[doctor::Seventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Ace, Benny
Main enemy:	Ants, Ship
Main setting:	Earth, Australia, Sydney, inter-dimensional cafe, 1995 Bellatrix City, inter-dimensional cafe, 25th century Argolis, inter-dimensional cafe Luxury Liner Cortese, 1815 Earth, Egypt, Akheaten, 1366 BCE Earth, Egypt, Cairo, 1798 Earth, France, Paris, 1871 On board The Ship
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Virgin Books]]
Writer:	Kate Orman
Release details
Release number:	35
Release date:	February, 1995
Format:	Paperback Book, 241 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0426204360

Publisher's Summary

Dead. He was dead. How the hell was she supposed to do CPR on a man with two hearts?

There's a rip in the fabric of space and time. Passenger ships are disappearing from the interstellar traffic lanes. In an attempt to find out who's behind the disappearances, the Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be captured. But when Bernice's rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, the time travellers find themselves scattered throughout history.

Ace, stranded in Ancient Egypt, struggles to survive in an environment as alien as a distant planet: the Earth 3,000 years before she was born. She manages to find employment as a nobleman's bodyguard. And then she comes face to face with the metal horrors which have pursued her through time - the creatures she saw kill the Doctor.

Characters

• The Doctor

• Knows how to speak French (separate from the TARDIS).
• Time calls the Doctor her champion.
• First met Death on a Gallifreyan hill side.
• Suffers a double cardiac arrest.
• Has his 1000th birthday.

• Ace

• Ace's name is revealed as Dorothy McShane.
• Becomes one of Sejet's bodyguards, she's called Tepy; meaning 'First One'.
• Leaves the Doctor; aged 26.
• Ace visits Denon in 1815; aged 28.
• She goes to Glebe (Sydney, Australia); aged 37.
• She at one point ends up in a relationship with one of Captain Sorin's ancestors, Count Nikolai Sorin.

• Bernice Summerfield

• Pain visits Benny in a dream telling her of the vulnerable nerve cluster on a Time Lords' shoulder.
• Drinks abinsthe and eats grapes in Cairo.

• Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart

• Her time machine has been knocking holes in space time.

• Sedjet

• Vivant Denon

• Harbors Kadiatu.

References

• The Doctor showed the Brigadier how to disable a Time Lord (in case of the Master ever returning to Earth); a blow to the left shoulder on a Time Lord hits a vital nerve cluster.

• Death clarifies for Benny that her mother (Claire Summerfield) was killed by the first Dalek beams during the attack on their colony.

• Some of Death's 'siblings' appear including: Pain and Time. All the Eternals (Time, Death, Pain) appear to be female.

• Pain is older than Death.

• Ace carries a Draconian army knife.

• Benny's travelling bag contains; gold, vodka, Antibiotics and camping equipment.

Notes

• Sophie Aldred wrote the afterward for this novel.
• A prologue to this novel appeared in DWM Issue 222
• The working title for this novel was; Butterfly Wings.

Continuity

• It's claimed here that Time Lord nanites can regrow limbs. A similar occurrence happens when the Doctor re-grows a hand in DW: The Christmas Invasion.

• Whilst reading records of history of Egypt Ace finds references to Daleks in the Pyramids as seen in DW: The Daleks' Master Plan.

• Kadiatu next appears in NA: The Also People.

• Ace makes a cameo appearance in NA: Head Games and attends Benny's wedding in Happy Endings.

External Links

• Doctor Who Reference Guide detailed synopsis of Set Piece
• The Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide - Set Piece
• Prelude to Set Piece as published in DWM#222

Footnotes