Just War was the forty-sixth Virgin New Adventures novel. It featured the Seventh Doctor, Bernice Summerfield, Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej. It was notable for its frankness. Several scenes of Benny being tortured at the hands of the Nazis together were twinned with scenes of Roz having sex in wartime London.
The book was the Doctor Who debut for Lance Parkin, a prolific DWU author.
Publisher's summary
"Tomorrow belongs to us, not you. If you were really from the future, Miss Summerfield, you would be a Nazi."
March 1941: Britain's darkest hour. The Nazis occupy British soil and British citizens are being deported to European concentration camps. Six thousand people a month are dying in air raids on London. The United States show no sign of entering the war.
According to the Doctor, this isn't a parallel universe, it isn't an alternate timeline; and everything is running according to schedule. But now something, somewhere, has gone wrong. The Nazis are building a secret weapon, one that will have a decisive effect on the outcome of the War. Chris thinks it's a UFO, while Roz believes that the Luftwaffe have developed the largest bomber ever built. Only Benny may have seen the mysterious craft — but she's disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Plot
to be added
Characters
Worldbuilding
Communications technology
- Benny has a Spacio-Temporal Alarm Beacon that can monitor local transmission and communicate with the TARDIS.
Fashion and clothing
- A tag on the Doctor's umbrella reads, "If lost please return to Portland Street Library, Paddington, London".
- Chris grows a handlebar moustache.
Individuals
- Benny is now thirty-three and her birthday is 21 June.
- Benny is proficient in Egyptian, Hebrew, French, ancient Greek, modern Greek, Old English, Old Norse and most Martian dialects.
- Roz contemplates staying in London in 1941 and getting married to George Reed. She also has a vision of herself dying.
- Arthur Kendrick recommended the formation of the Scientific Intelligence Division.
Substances
- The Doctor can be knocked out by chloroform.
TARDIS
- The TARDIS can remove itself from Minkowski Space.
Food and beverages
- The Doctor eats a full English breakfast whilst held prisoner by Steinmann. He later drinks wine and eats a sumptuous vegetarian meal with Steinmann, who tries and fails to get him drunk. He also likes lemonade.
- Bernice is given tomato soup and bread to eat whilst held prisoner.
Notes
- Just War was adapted by Jacqueline Rayner for Big Finish Productions' first series of Professor Bernice Summerfield audio dramas.
- The audio drama version omits the Seventh Doctor, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester and instead focuses on Bernice Summerfield and her ex-husband Jason Kane (who was not part of the original story).
- Mel makes a brief appearance in a flashback interlude.
Continuity
- In PROSE: Happy Endings, the Doctor tells the Brigadier of Benny's torture at the hands of the Nazis. Bernice Doras also turns up and gives Benny her diary that is taken by the Nazis in this novel.
- Benny visits the Doctor's house on Allen Road. (COMIC: Fellow Travellers, et al.)
- The Doctor tells Chris about the future he saw in which the Nazis won the war, where the swastika hung over the Festival of Britain and Edward VIII returned to the throne. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)