Virgin New Adventures

Virgin New Adventures
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Type:	Book series
Release date:	20 June 1991 - 18 April 1997
Virgin New Adventures
Next →	Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

The New Adventures were a series of original, full-length Doctor Who novels published by Virgin Books. They continued the adventures of the Seventh Doctor after the TV story Survival. As the books were geared for an older audience, they included mature themes, strong language, violence, and sexual elements.

The book line changed its branding in 1996, relegating the Doctor Who logo to the spine and re-branding the series as "The New Adventures", with the publication of Eternity Weeps.

Following the broadcast of the 1996 TV movie, BBC Books took over the license for publishing original Doctor Who fiction, although there was an overlap of more than a year to allow Virgin to publish its contracted novels until mid 1997. After the Eighth Doctor novel The Dying Days, the New Adventures continued with Bernice as the main character in the Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures.

Virgin launched two spin-off lines following the initial success of the NA line: the Decalogs, a series of five short story collections, and the Missing Adventures, chronicling the adventures of the first six Doctors.

From 1999 onward, Big Finish adapted several novels for audio by Big Finish, either directly or altered to omit the Doctor and focus on Summerfield. In 2007, the New Adventures novel Human Nature was adapted as the television episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Although the continuity of the Virgin books were initially ignored by the BBC Books lines, this was eventually relaxed and references to New and Missing Adventures began to appear. In DWM 482, Steven Moffat described the New Adventures as "a separate (and equally valid) continuity" to the BBC Wales television series.

Stories

#	Title	Author	Doctor	Featuring	Published
1	Timewyrm: Genesys	John Peel	7th	Ace	20 June 1991
2	Timewyrm: Exodus	Terrance Dicks			15 August 1991
3	Timewyrm: Apocalypse	Nigel Robinson			17 October 1991
4	Timewyrm: Revelation	Paul Cornell			5 December 1991
5	Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible	Marc Platt			20 February 1992
6	Cat's Cradle: Warhead	Andrew Cartmel			16 April 1992
7	Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark	Andrew Hunt			18 June 1992
8	Nightshade	Mark Gatiss			20 August 1992
9	Love and War	Paul Cornell		Ace, Bernice	15 October 1992
10	Transit	Ben Aaronovitch		Bernice	3 December 1992
11	The Highest Science	Gareth Roberts			18 February 1993
12	The Pit	Neil Penswick			18 March 1993
13	Deceit	Peter Darvill-Evans		Ace, Bernice	15 April 1993
14	Lucifer Rising	Jim Mortimore, Andy Lane			20 May 1993
15	White Darkness	David A. McIntee			17 June 1993
16	Shadowmind	Christopher Bulis			15 July 1993
17	Birthright	Nigel Robinson			19 August 1993
18	Iceberg	David Banks			16 September 1993
19	Blood Heat	Jim Mortimore		Ace, Bernice	21 October 1993
20	The Dimension Riders	Daniel Blythe			18 November 1993
21	The Left-Handed Hummingbird	Kate Orman			2 December 1993
22	Conundrum	Steve Lyons			20 January 1994
23	No Future	Paul Cornell			17 February 1994
24	Tragedy Day	Gareth Roberts			17 March 1994
25	Legacy	Gary Russell			21 April 1994
26	Theatre of War	Justin Richards			19 May 1994
27	All-Consuming Fire	Andy Lane			16 June 1994
28	Blood Harvest	Terrance Dicks			21 July 1994
29	Strange England	Simon Messingham			18 August 1994
30	First Frontier	David A. McIntee			15 September 1994
31	St Anthony's Fire	Mark Gatiss			20 October 1994
32	Falls the Shadow	Daniel O'Mahony			17 November 1994
33	Parasite	Jim Mortimore			1 December 1994
34	Warlock	Andrew Cartmel			19 January 1995
35	Set Piece	Kate Orman			16 February 1995
36	Infinite Requiem	Daniel Blythe		Bernice	16 March 1995
37	Sanctuary	David A. McIntee			20 April 1995
38	Human Nature	Paul Cornell			18 May 1995
39	Original Sin	Andy Lane		Bernice, Chris, Roz	15 June 1995
40	Sky Pirates!	Dave Stone			20 July 1995
41	Zamper	Gareth Roberts			17 August 1995
42	Toy Soldiers	Paul Leonard			21 September 1995
43	Head Games	Steve Lyons			19 October 1995
44	The Also People	Ben Aaronovitch			16 November 1995
45	Shakedown	Terrance Dicks			7 December 1995
46	Just War	Lance Parkin			18 January 1996
47	Warchild	Andrew Cartmel			16 February 1996
48	Sleepy	Kate Orman			16 March 1996
49	Death and Diplomacy	Dave Stone			18 April 1996
50	Happy Endings	Paul Cornell			16 May 1996
51	GodEngine	Craig Hinton		Chris, Roz	20 June 1996
52	Christmas on a Rational Planet	Lawrence Miles			18 July 1996
53	Return of the Living Dad	Kate Orman		Bernice, Chris, Roz	15 August 1996
54	The Death of Art	Simon Bucher-Jones		Chris, Roz	19 September 1996
55	Damaged Goods	Russell T Davies			24 October 1996
56	So Vile a Sin	Ben Aaronovitch, Kate Orman			May 1997
57	Bad Therapy	Matthew Jones		Chris	5 December 1996
58	Eternity Weeps	Jim Mortimore			16 January 1997
59	The Room With No Doors	Kate Orman			20 February 1997
60	Lungbarrow	Marc Platt		Chris, Romana II, Leela, Ace, K9 Mark I, K9 Mark II	20 March 1997
61	The Dying Days	Lance Parkin	8th	Bernice, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT	18 April 1997

Notes

Continuity

• The New Adventures introduced a few new companions into the life of the Doctor: Bernice Summerfield (debuting in Love and War), Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej (debuting in Original Sin) and Wolsey the cat (debuting in Human Nature).
• Ace was written out in Love and War and left the Doctor before reuniting with him in Deceit. During the intervening three years, she changed considerably. Ace left a second time, permanently, in Set Piece. Ace's character development and departure were contradicted by later media.
• Apart from the novels, a few of the comics and audios take place specifically in the New Adventures continuity. These feature the Seventh Doctor, Bernice, and the older version of Ace.
• Eternity Weeps portrays the death (some years in the future, from the viewpoint of readers when the book first came out) of the Third Doctor's companion, Liz Shaw.
• Several novels of the New Adventures featured old foes from the TV series, including:
  • Timewyrm: Exodus - The War Chief
  • Iceberg - Cybermen and the Cyber-Controller
  • Blood Heat - Silurians and Sea Devils
  • No Future - The Monk and the Vardans
  • Blood Harvest - Great Vampires
  • First Frontier - The Master
  • Toy Soldiers - Ogrons (cameo only)
  • Head Games - Valeyard (illusion only)
  • Shakedown - Sontarans and the Rutan Host
  • GodEngine - Daleks (cameo only)
  • The Dying Days - Ice Warriors
• The New Adventures were linked in several major ways to Virgin's Missing Adventures line.
  • A story strand which originated in Blood Harvest continued into the first Missing Adventure Goth Opera in an effort to get readers to buy both books.
  • Shakedown and Lords of the Storm both featured the Sontarans in the same month.
  • The Missing Adventure Cold Fusion featured both the Fifth Doctor and the Seventh Doctor alongside Roz, Chris Cwej, and the Fifth Doctor's companions.

Adaptations

• The novel Shakedown was itself an adaptation of the Reeltime Pictures production Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, greatly expanded to include the Doctor.
• In Big Finish Productions' Bernice Summerfield series, audio adaptations of Birthright and Just War modified the novels to remove Doctor Who elements to which Big Finish did not yet have the rights.
• The novel Human Nature was adapted into the two-part story Human Nature/The Family of Blood in Series 3 of BBC Wales' Doctor Who.
• Love and War was directly adapted by Big Finish into an audio drama in 2012. This was followed by The Highest Science, Damaged Goods, Theatre of War, All-Consuming Fire and Original Sin.

Production notes

• Following the broadcast of the 1996 TV movie, BBC Books took over the license for publishing original Doctor Who fiction, but there was an overlap of more than a year to allow Virgin to publish its contracted novels. As a result, the book line changed its branding, the Doctor Who logo on the front cover and spine was removed beginning with the publication of Eternity Weeps.
• So Vile a Sin was the final book to be published featuring the Doctor, but it was published out of narrative sequence due to delays preventing its completion. The death of a major character in that book was meant to be a surprise, but because of the production delay this was no longer possible, and the novel was adapted accordingly: its prologue began with the funeral for the character, and the event was made an intrinsic part of the narrative, rather than a shock conclusion.

External links

• The Doctor Who Online Merchandise Guide - Virgin Books - The New Adventures