The Face-Eater (novel)

The Face-Eater
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eighth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Sam Jones
Main enemy:	The Face-Eater
Main setting:	Proxima 2, 2132
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::BBC Books]]
Writer:	Simon Messingham
Release details
Release number:	18
Release date:	January, 1999
Format:	Paperback Book, 276 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-55569-6

Publisher’s Summary

The Doctor and Sam arrive on Proxima II, one of the earliest planets colonised in humanity’s first big push into space. But instead of a brave new world, they find a settlement rife with superstition and unrest.

The native Proximans are inexplicably dying out. Humans too are being killed in horrific ways, with each face being stripped bare.

Posing as investigators from Earth, the Doctor and Sam must track down the force moving through the dark catacombs beneath Proxima City. It seems that the superstitious whisperings of the colonists may be well founded -- that the sinister Face-Eater from Proximan mythology has awakened from its long sleep, to drive out all those who would defile its world...

Characters

• The Doctor

• Falls down a hole, breaks his leg.

• Samantha Jones

• Gets blown up while breaking into an office, gets third degree burns, but recovers.
• Then gets into a car, and crashes it, knocking her out and giving her numerous bruises.
• She's still a little bit paranoid about nanotech being in her body.

• Helen Percival

• Colony executive

• Ben Fuller

• Joan Betts

• Is a xenoanthropologist.
• Gets killed by the Face-Eater

• Jake Leary

• The Face-Eater

• Also known by the native Proximans as F'Seeta.
• Is a shape shifter

References

• Global Mining Corporation has records of the Doctor and a female associate who is under several aliases including; Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith and Ace.

• The female associate is listed as having graduated from Geneva Corporate University in 2124.

• The Rutans gained their shape shifting ability through genetic tampering.
• The Doctor rambles as he talks to Jake Leary mentioning a number of things; "I've seen it all over the galaxy. Werewolves, manitous, shape-shifters, Rutans, robots. Even the Master has been known to give it a whirl. And did I tell you about that time at Crook Marsham? Most memorable."
• The Doctor mentions the Hoothi to Leary.
• Mention is made of a Bug Eyed Monster (BEM), this is how UNIT classifies such things, supposedly.
• Proxima 2 is Earth's first interstellar colony.
• The Proximan natives are rodent creatures that can mimic others. They possess telepathy and were once intelligent, but loose the telepathy and shared consciousness when the Face-Eater is destroyed.

Notes

• Page 215 contains what is possibly the only mention of the Doctor's bladder in a licensed work of Doctor Who fiction.

Continuity

• The events of DW: Warriors of the Deep are mentioned.
• The Doctor's imprisonment in EDA: Seeing I is mention by the shape shifter.
• There is a flashback sequence to DW: Planet of the Spiders
• Sam no longer has the nanotech in her body she accquired in EDA: Beltempest.

Timeline

• This story takes place after EDA: Beltempest
• This story takes place before ST: Femme Fatale

External links

• Doctor Who Reference Guide - Detailed Synopsis: The Face-Eater