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Falls the Shadow was the thirty-second New Adventures novel featuring the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield. It was author Daniel O'Mahony's first novel, and his only contribution to the Virgin New Adventures range.
Publisher's summary
"We are deranged. We are psychopaths, sociopaths, up the garden path," said Tanith. "We are mad, and you are trapped with us."
The TARDIS is imprisoned in a house called Shadowfell, where a man is ready to commence the next phase of an experiment that will remake the world.
A stranger dressed in grey watches from a hillside, searching for the sinister powers growing within the house. A killer appears from the surrounding forest, determined to carry out her deadly instructions. In the cellar, something lingers, observing and influencing events, waiting to take on flesh and emerge. And trapped in alien darkness, the last survivor of a doomed race mourns for the lost planet Earth.
Plot
Prologue: Qxeleq awakes to find her world dead, the Hive empty and all six million people, including her mate and the embryos in her womb, gone. She is surrounded in darkness, unable to scream as she doesn't have a mouth. She wonders if she actually did survive the apocalypse.
A man in grey watches a house called the Shadowfell, encountering a girl named Rose, looking for her brother. He sneaks into the basement, tracking an anomaly, and finds her brother just before he dies, having been tortured by two balls of light. They attack and kill the Grey Man. A woman dreaming in darkness decides to call herself "Jane Page" this time.
The TARDIS travellers find the ship has been plunged into darkness, but things like life support still work, and the ship is still moving towards an unknown destination. A blinding light emerges from the time rotor and fills the console room. The TARDIS materialises in the basement of the house. The two lights know what it is and are excited.
Harry Truman and Sandra Winterdawn discuss experiments and Justin Cranleigh's mental state. The Doctor, Ace, and Benny split up and explore the basement cautiously. Benny meets Cranleigh, who calls her Laura and holds her at knifepoint. She eventually escapes, finding something horrible in the basement and hearing malicious laughter before fleeing outside. The grey man is there and he erases her memory to calm her.
- to be added
Characters
References
Biology
- Bernice loses two pints of blood when she's attacked by vampire orchids.
- The metahedron caused several mutations of animals and plants in the jungles around it, including insects with(out) extra wings, legs, and heads, and the vampire blooms.
- The Grey Man's essence is an energy network, recreating a body if he's ever killed.
The Doctor
- Theta Sigma is not the Doctor's name, but identifies him uniquely amongst the Time Lords and should not be spoken outside of the Academy.
- The Doctor mentions the Eye of Harmony and the Daleks.
- Benny's death causes the Doctor to consider leaving Ace in 1994 and returning home to Gallifrey. He's been meaning to settle down for a while.
- The Doctor has been travelling with Bernice for two years.
Individuals
- Ace was born in North London in 1970, Benny on an Earth colony in 2422.
- The Doctor has met Harry Truman and Oscar Wilde.
- Qxeleq is the last survivor of the Mind.
- Bernice is an atheist.
Psychology
- Time Lords call true madness "the Dark Design".
Locations
- The TARDIS exists outside of the real universe and so Gabriel and Tanith can't reach the Doctor if he's inside.
- The first humanoids evolved on a world 30 billion light-years from Earth.
- Cathedral is a metacultural engine programmed to, essentially, introduce "greyness" into places where the duality of black and white persists. It is ruled by the Mandelbrot Set after being created by the Grey Man.
Concepts
- Winterdawn is experimenting with interstitial time based on notes by a Professor Carl Thascales, who died after driving his car into a wall, his body burned beyond all recognition.
- Gabriel and Tanith are the suffering of the universe, but are not (yet) responsible for all of its ills. They draw their power from the structure of the universe.
- "There is always still-time, and there is always flowing-time" is a Gallifreyan quote.
- A war was fought against the Great Snake millions of years ago.
Notes
- A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 218.
- The title is a reference to "The Hollow Men", a poem by T.S. Eliot.
- This novel was written based on the rumours surrounding TV: Ghost Light.
Continuity
- Interstitial time was experimented with by the Master. (TV: The Time Monster)
- The Doctor has met the Irish playwright and author Oscar Wilde, (AUDIO: Beautiful Things) and says he tried to explain time travel to Einstein. (TV: Time and the Rani)
- The Doctor mentions the Eye of Harmony. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, Doctor Who)
- Gabriel and Tanith show Bernice her guilt for letting people die in the transit system. (PROSE: Transit)
- The Doctor encourages Jane Page to kill him and take a life. (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
- "Theta Sigma" is closely guarded secret of the Doctor's, yet he shared it with Trevor Sigma on Terra Alpha, although telling him may not have been significant, compared to someone like the Grey Man. (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
- Ace recalls her encounter with Melanie Bush. (TV: Dragonfire)
- She is still afraid of big, empty houses. (TV: Ghost Light)
- Ace loves Benny and is hit hard by her death, more so than the people she just fancied like Julian Milton, Jan Rydd,(PROSE: Love and War) Mike Smith,(TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and Sorin.(TV: The Curse of Fenric)
- Ace asks the Doctor in the end "We haven't done good, have we?", alluding to her question "We did good, didn't we?" after defeating the Daleks in 1963. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
- C. Moore Wedderburn is the author of The Trail of the Black Orchid: A botanical and zoological guide to the journeys of George Cranleigh. (TV: Black Orchid)
- Just as Fenric could pull Ingiger from an alternate Earth, Gabriel and Tanith pull Qxeleq and Jane Page from alternate Earths to Shadowfell. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
External links
- Falls the Shadow at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Discontinuity Guide to: Falls the Shadow at The Whoniverse
- Prelude to Falls the Shadow as published in DWM #218
- The Cloister Library: Falls the Shadow
