The Time Travellers was the seventy-fourth BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel. It was written by Simon Guerrier. It featured the First Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. This novel is sequel to several stories which hadn't happened yet in the Doctor's timeline and therefore occur differently, with different outcomes from The War Machines, The Tenth Planet and Remembrance of the Daleks affecting the alternate future shown in this novel.
Publisher's summary
"Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension, to be exiles?"
24 June, 2006. The TARDIS has landed in London. Ian and Barbara are almost back home. But this isn't the city they knew. This city is a ruin, torn apart by war. A war that the British are losing.
With his friends mistaken for vagrants and sentenced to death, the Doctor is press-ganged into helping perfect a weapon that might just turn the tables in the war. The British Army has discovered time travel. And the consequences are already devastating.
What has happened to the world that Ian and Barbara once knew? How much of the experiment do the Doctor and Susan really understand?
And, despite all the Doctor has said to the contrary, is it actually possible to change history?
Plot
to be added
Characters
References
Individuals
- Ian Chesterton's national service number was 15110404. He was a private.
- When Ian and Barbara are returned to London on 26 June 1965, the Doctor gives them an envelope of British notes and coins, including a twenty pence coin which was minted in 1982.
Technology
- Dalek technology from the Shoreditch Incident helped the British create their time machine.
Notes
- Unlike most novels in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures (and Virgin Missing Adventures), the back cover does not specify what television stories it is set between. However, it clearly takes place right after Planet of Giants. Chapter One opens with the Doctor saying his closing lines from that story: "I think we're beginning to materialise. Perhaps I shall know now where we are." The main characters are also described as wearing the same clothes, such as the Doctor's cloak and Susan's dungarees, and their previous adventure is also said to have been rough on Barbara.
- The epilogue of this novel follows the last scenes of the television story The Chase with Ian and Barbara on the bus.
- The dystopian future of this story is the result of the events of the television story The War Machines — here, WOTAN was successful in temporarily conquering the planet. It is strongly suggested, though not outright said, that this is in fact what was meant to happen to Earth and that the Doctor's involvement changed history.
Continuity
- Joan Wright, Barbara's mother, reappears. (PROSE: A Long Night)
- Barbara claims to have learned her lesson about changing history in Mexico in the 15th century. (TV: The Aztecs)
- Barbara remembers her travels in the TARDIS to 1289, (TV: Marco Polo) 1794, (TV: The Reign of Terror) 1692, (PROSE: The Witch Hunters) the 28th century, (TV: The Sensorites) and the 30th century. (PROSE: Room for Improvement) She also knows of the significance of 1066. (TV: The Time Meddler)
- In the alternative timeline in 1972, British scientists use the Dalek technology which they salvaged from Coal Hill School in the aftermath of the Shoreditch Incident in November 1963 to build a time machine. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
- Following an alternate version of events at Snowcap, (TV: The Tenth Planet) the Cybermen now live permanently at the South Pole. The South Africans made a deal with them for weaponry.
- The Doctor states that the time-warping events will draw the attention of the Time Lords, and it's now more likely they'll find him; the Doctor now wants to find a safe place to leave Susan so she will not be found. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)