Seeing I (novel)

Seeing I (novel)

left

Seeing I
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eighth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Sam Jones
Main enemy:	The I INC
Main setting:	Ha'olam, Oliver Bainbridge Functional Stabilisation Centre, 22nd century (for the Doctor) Ha'olam, 22nd century (for Sam)
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::BBC Books]]
Writer:	Jonathan Blum & Kate Orman
Release details
Release number:	12
Release date:	June, 1998
Format:	Paperback Book, 276 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-40586-4

Publisher’s Summary

He has no idea why Samantha Jones ran away from him.

Sam is homeless on the streets of the colony world of Ha'olam, trying to face what’s just happened between her and the Doctor. He’s searching for her, and for answers. While she struggles to survive in a strange city centuries from home, the Doctor comes across evidence of alien involvement in the local mega-corporation, INC - and is soon confined to a prison that becomes a hell of his own making.

Where did INC’s mysterious eye implants really come from? What is the company searching for in the deserts? What is hiding in the shadows, watching their progress?

Faced with these mysteries, separated by half a world, Sam and the Doctor each face a battle - Sam to rebuild her life, the Doctor to stay sane. And if they find each other again, what will be left of either of them?

Characters

• The Doctor

• Uses the alias James Alistair Bowman
• Goes into detail of how he was held prisoner by the Tractites.
• Seems to indicate he was taught by Leonardo da Vinci
• Still carries everlasting matches.
• Becomes a little bit claustrophobic after three years of being locked awayas a prisoner.

• Sam Jones

• When Sam left the Doctor she was nearly seventeen. She is now nearly eighteen.
• She spends three years on Ha'olam and is now twenty-one.
• Sam remembers sleeping with a bat (Jasper in the TARDIS).
• Mentions the Daleks and the Cybermen.
• At the novel's end Sam gives the Doctor a long passionate kiss, and feels no compulsion to do it again...though she wouldn't say no.

• Shoshana Rubenstein

• Sam's flatmate for a while.
• Gets an eye implant / replacement.

• Paul Hamani

• Sam’s first lover.

• Orin

• Was in the wars.
• Another of Sam's lovers.

• Dr David Akalu

• Is Moral Facilitator at the Oliver Bainbridge Functional Stabilisation Centre.

• DOCTOR

• Is an artificial intelligence based on the Doctor, sounds a bit like him.
• Goes travelling with another AI called FLORENCE

• Rifaat

• Is the head guard at the Doctor's prison.
• Is slowly driven mad and almost beats the Doctor to death.

• Ziba

References

Corporations

• Sam goes to join the Eurogen Village.

• Eurogen Company merged with the Butler Institute, to create Eurogen-Butler Corporation which later became the Spinward Corporation.

• The Eurogen Village is a partially a project assisted by Livingspace.
• The Doctor uses data umphs to search through several companies data bases including Imogen and resulting in"Kisumu Interplantary's intranet collapsed." Kisumu most likely refers to the Dione-Kisumu company. The data umphs also attack Gray Corporation's systems.

Cultural references

• The Doctor describes what a perigosto stick is for; "...You use it in a game of four-dimensional juggling".

• The Doctor uploads fragments of Down Among the Dead Men Again (whose author would more than likely be the same as Down Among the Dead Men; Bernice Summerfield).

Foods and Beverages

• Sam drinks coffee, she never used to after she had an experience with drugs.
• Number 15 is a system of moves that the Doctor and Sam came up with.

• Number 15 involves the Doctor using a banana and pretending it to be a gun to hold someone up, while in the confusion Sam takes the guard's gun.

Gallifrey

• The Doctor explains to Sam what happened to Savar; "It happened back when I was a student. Savar was a Time Lord who went on a mission in his TARDIS, but something went wrong and he had to abandon ship.".

Individuals

• Sam's 'Dark Sam' personality is referred to several times.
• The DOCTOR mentions to the Doctor "I could name half a dozen of your school chums and all sorts of ancient lore and legends from Gallifrey.".
• The Doctor tells Sam that he met his granddaughter Susan whilst searching for her.
• It's been three and a bit years since the Doctor last saw Sam, it was also the same amount of time that Ace spent in the Spacefleet (the Doctor mentions this "It was about three years after she left me that I saw Ace again.")

Planets

• The Doctor continues with his search for Sam stating; "I know she was there on the Kusk ship, I know she was on Mu Camelopides - but then where did she go?".
• The buses on Ha'olam are ornithopters.
• Sam watches a 3D TV with news stories concerning Mu Camelopides IV.
• The Doctor travels to Gallifrey (to return Savar's eyes) and Neo-Sydney to have a tailor recreate his outfit.
• INC owns 64 percent of Temporal Commercial Concerns whose main assets concerned the planet Hirath.

• The Doctor babbles at one point about wanting to be on Stella Stora and New Mars.
• The Doctor posits that the I moved a Time Tree from Hirath to Tractis.

Prisons

• The Doctor is held prisoner at the Oliver Bainbridge Functional Stabilisation Centre.
• The Doctor states that he's escaped from; the Tower of London to a Klein sphere.

Species

• Lacaillans and Caxtarid are some of the people that make up the population of Ha'olam.

Technology

• The eye implants are far safer (supposedly) than the synch-op links.
• INC use a sonic cannon to destroy the Eurogen Village which may have been surplus from the Thousand Day War.
• INC have a mind probe, which has 13 settings.
• INC also have recovered from a crash a Borelli elemental compositor, a tritium powered something, a Kosnax fruit machine.
• The I's ship is constructed patrially of Tinclavic.

Notes

• The beginning of the book contains a quote from NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible by Paul Cornell.
• Continuing what could be considered a trend for Kate Orman novels; The Doctor gets tortured in extreme and interesting ways.
• At one point there was an explicit reference that Sam was bisexual however

the line about "three years and three relationships under the bridge" was originally something like "three years and a couple of boyfriends and a couple of girlfriends under the bridge".

Continuity

• Imogen (company) first appeared in NA: Transit.
• Dione-Kisumu company appeared in NA: Sleepy.
• Gray Corporation appeared in EDA: Kursaal.
• The Doctor's alias (James Alistair Bowman) comes primarily from DW: Doctor Who.
• Synch-op links were seen in DW: Warriors of the Deep.
• In DW: The Sensorites the Doctor mentions the Tower of London, in BFA: Circular Time the Doctor ends up in the Tower.
• The Doctor first mentions a perigosto stick in DW: The Green Death.
• Eurogen Company merged from/with the Butler Institute which occured in NA: Cat's Cradle: Warhead, to create Eurogen-Butler Corp. They play a significant role in BNA: Another Girl, Another Planet. Later they became the Spinward Corporation, seen in NA: Deceit.
• The Doctor was held prisoner and (effectively) tortured by Tractites in EDA: Genocide.
• Sam refers to having seen cloned humans (EDA: Vampire Science).
• Sam witnesses a warehouse full of company designed babies created for testing, this imagery would be used as a source for other media images in EDA: Interference - Book Two.
• Savar's final fate is seen in PDA: The Infinity Doctors.
• The concept of 'Dark Sam' living in King's Cross is first seen in EDA: Alien Bodies and actually seen in Unnatural History
• FLORENCE appeared in NA: Transit and Sleepy.

Timeline

• This story takes place after EDA: Dreamstone Moon
• This story takes place before EDA: Placebo Effect

Reprint

BBC Books has announced that a "print on demand" reprint edition of this novel will be made available as of 30th September 2011 as the imprint revisits adventures featuring the first eight Doctors.

External links

• Seeing I at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Seeing I at The Whoniverse