Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)
Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark is the seventh novel in the Virgin New Adventures series and the final book in the Cat's Cradle arc. It was written by Andrew Hunt and features the Seventh Doctor and Ace.
Publisher's summary
"Spare no sympathy for those creatures. They were witches, they deserved to die."
A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes.
A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapered horn.
In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tír na n-Óg, the besieged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons.
The TARDIS's link with the Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.
Plot
to be added
Characters
- The Seventh Doctor
- Ace
- Lynx
- Bat
- Bathsheba
- Chulainn
- Daffyr
- David
- Dryfid
- Emrys Hughes
- Goibhnie
- Inspector Graham Stevens
- Herne
- Hugh
- Constable Hughes
- Jack
- Janet
- Nuada
- Old Davy
- Rhys
- Selwyn Hughes
- Stuart Taylor
References
- The Doctor mentions will o' the wisp.
Books
- The Book of Rassilon starts with "In the beginning...".
Foods and beverages
- The Doctor and Ace eat potato and leek soup.
- The Doctor fries up bacon for everyone.
- Ace doesn't like Spam.
- The Doctor claims that there's a fish and chip shop in Rhyl "whose Spam sandwiches can't be equalled this side of the Crab Nebula."
Individuals
- Ace is not very religious.
- Lynx, the silver cat which has been popping up, is generated by the TARDIS, and normally resides in a cat's cradle of mathematics in the time rotor when not needed.
- Stuart Taylor is the local vet.
Organisations
- Scotland Yard has a one-man Paranormal Investigations Team consisting of Inspector Stevens.
Planets
- Earth is widely recognised as one of the causal nexus points of the galaxy.
Species
- A speck of demonic protoplasm infects the TARDIS.
Notes
- This is the final novel in the Cat's Cradle Trilogy.
- Other than being in the late 20th century, the year this novel is set in is debatable:
- The setting is roughly contemporary to the year of publishing in 1992.
- The demonic duplicates of the Doctor and Ace return in Return of the Living Dad in 1983. Time distortion caused by one of Albinex attempts to repair his ship could be responsible.
- Inspector Graham Stevens claims to have seen Yeti in the London Underground twenty years ago. (TV: The Web of Fear) See UNIT dating controversy.
- A phone number is given as 01-356247. Real world London phone codes changed from 01 to 071 and 081 in May 1990.
Continuity
- The clones of the Doctor and Ace would later appear in PROSE: Return of the Living Dad.
- The effects of the protoplasm on the Doctor and the TARDIS would continually be shown in later novels up until its expulsion in PROSE: Deceit.
- The Doctor once again encounters a biomechanoid dragon, having previously met the "Dragon" of Iceworld. (TV: Dragonfire)
- The Doctor comments that he recalls a spider almost killing him. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
- Gallifrey as a source of "morphologically unstable living organic matter" may refer to validium. (TV: Silver Nemesis) Other sources include Axos, (TV: The Claws of Axos) and possibly Nestene matter. (TV: Spearhead from Space)
- Block Transfer Computation was discovered by the Logopolitans. (TV: Logopolis)
- The mention of King Arthur is an indirect reference to TV: Battlefield.
- The Doctor refers to the time he took his past companion Mel to a Welsh holiday camp in the 1950s, and mentions acquaintance Goronwy. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen)
- Ace mentions that she used to be waitress (TV: Dragonfire) and remembers the time she met the Cheetah People. (TV: Survival) She also remembers the time she went to 1963. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
- Ace is reminded of the Haemovores when the demons of Tír na n-Óg are fought off using faith. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
External links
- Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Discontinuity Guide to: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark at The Whoniverse
- The Cloister Library: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark
- Bewildering Reference Guide entry to Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark, with notes by the author
