Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible is the fifth book in the New Adventures series and the first in the Cat's Cradle sub-trilogy. It features the Seventh Doctor and Ace and was written by Marc Platt.
Publisher's summary
"You’re on your own, Ace."
The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears.
Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process.
Lost voyagers drawn forward from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins.
The strands of time are tangled in a cat’s cradle of dimensions.
Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future.
But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.
Chapter Titles
- Prologue
- Moussaka and Chips
- Cat's Eyes
- Bootstrapping
- Inside Information
- There's No Place Like Home
- Night School
- Non vultus, non color
- The Hollow Hand
- Telling Tales
- Daleks Don't Like Finger Biscuits
- Figures in the Smoke
- In Initio, ex Tempore
- Fragments of Now
- Tales from the Tongues of Fish
- Time and Again
- The Big Wind-up
- Mutatis Mutandis
- Future Imperfect
- Superstrings
- The Banshee Circuit
- Time Revised
- The Frying Pan Option
- The Pythia's Curse
- A Flight of Stairs
- Spring Tide
- Moon Shadows
- An Eye for an Eye
- The Worst Monster
- Beginning Again
- The Children of Rassilon
- Bookends
Plot
to be added
Characters
- Seventh Doctor
- Ace
- The Pythia
- Rassilon
- The Process
- The Guards
Crew of the Time Scaphe
Ancient Gallifrey
References
- The Sisterhood of Karn and Lady Peinforte are each leftovers of the Pythia's power.
Astronomical objects
- Pazithi Gallifreya is Gallifrey's moon.
- There has been a century-long siege of the Winter Star.
Biology
- Rassilon created the Looms to save Gallifrey from potential extinction caused by Pythia's curse of sterility upon Gallifrey.
Books
- The Process is called "Amphisbaena" in the Book of Future Legends.
- Rassilon the God was written by Cardinal Borusa.
- Pelatov's Collected Sageries
Cults
- The Pythia sends her sisterhood to Karn.
Gallifrey
- The Doctor has never travelled into the past of Gallifrey.
Gallifreyan Chapter Houses
- The Doctor is one of forty-five cousins of the House of Lungbarrow.
Gallifreyan culture
- Sepulchasm is a board game on Gallifrey.
- Anmers-Tonastide was the Festival of the Timewright.
- Kithriarch equals "father" on Gallifrey before Rassilon.
- Treazant was the currency on Gallifrey.
- Pianalaika is related to music or bands.
- White sand was imported from Mirphak 2 to Gallifrey for the Games of Rassilon because it showed up the blood better.
- The Academia was a place of learning on Gallifrey.
Gallifreyan history
- The Pythia were the ruler of Gallifrey before Rassilon.
- Pythia came from before the Intuitive Revolution which heralded the rise of Rassilon to power.
Gallifreyan organisations
- The Court of Principals are an organisation on Gallifrey.
- The Council Police enforce the law.
- Neo-Technologists were aligned to Rassilon.
Individuals
- Satthralope was house keeper in the Doctor's House on Gallifrey.
Languages
- Ace can swear in eleven alien languages.
Locations
- Logistomancer is from A32K.
- Aubert Cluster demand independence from the Pythia.
- Thule had an empire.
Objects
- Ace mentions the Hand of Omega.
- Ace finds Ian's Swiss Army knife.
Organisations
- The Core Sybilline is the ruling government of the Nest-Worlds of Klanti.
Species
- The Process is an annelid with lamprey-like mouths at each end (termed "mouthfeet"). It moves by using alternating mouthfeet to pivot its body, moving not unlike a Slinky.
- The Guards are described as bipedal red insects, with twenty-four "optic nodes" instead of eyes. The Process can speak through them.
- Menti Celesti are "capricious and all-powerful", "who saw all things but did nothing".
- Tafelshrew is a rodent from Gallifrey.
- Gallifreyans battled the Gryffnae and hunted the lacustrine Sattisar.
- There is a plague of batworms on the asteroid archipelago.
- Pythia had a Grelladian guard.
- Jagdagians were performers in circuses.
- In a market Pen-Shoza traders displayed fresh consignments of workers from Oshakarm and the Star Grellades.
Theories and concepts
- The Doctor mentions Blinovictual Theory, most likely a reference to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.
TARDIS
- Banshee Circuits are what the TARDIS uses to survive when everything else fails. It uses whatever resources are available: people, places, dreams etc.
Vehicles
- The Hero's ship is called the Apollaten.
- Time Scaphe is a time machine powered by thought.
Notes
- This is the first novel in the Cat's Cradle trilogy.
- This story was adapted from an unproduced television story.
- Time's Crucible leads directly into Warhead, implying that the Doctor was planning to deal with the Butler Institute after having a meal with Ace in Ealing before the Process broke into the TARDIS.
Continuity
- The Doctor says he has never been to Alaska; however AUDIO: The Land of the Dead is set there.
- No natural born child exists on Gallifrey since Pythia's curse; however, PROSE: Cold Fusion and PROSE Lungbarrow question this.
- Ancient Gallifrey is also seen and described in PROSE: Interference - Book Two.
- The Sisterhood of Karn first appeared in TV: The Brain of Morbius.
- Lady Peinforte mentioned mysterious secrets about the Doctor in TV: Silver Nemesis.
- Ace does not like black cats, which were prominent in TV: Survival.
- This is the first time it is suggested that the TARDIS is to be piloted by six people. This was later referenced on screen in TV: Journey's End.
- Ace has, on previous explorations of the TARDIS, found the courtyard that was a central location in TV: Logopolis and the room of cricket supplies seen in TV: Castrovalva.
- The Doctor eyes window display mannikins with a mix of curiosity and suspicion, telling Ace, "Never be certain of what you think you see." (TV: Spearhead from Space)
Gallery
Original cover
Hungarian edition
