Festival of Death (novel)

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Festival of Death was the thirty-fifth novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Jonathan Morris, released 4 September 2000 and featured the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K9.

Publisher's summary

2000 BBC Books edition

The Beautiful Death. The ultimate theme-park ride. For twenty galactic credits, you can find out what it's like to be dead.

But something has gone wrong. Visitors expecting a sightseeing tour of the afterlife have been transformed into mindless zombies, set on a killing rampage.

The TARDIS arrives in the aftermath of the disaster and, to the Doctor's baffled delight, he is immediately congratulated for saving the population from certain and terrible destruction.

The only problem is, he hasn't actually done it yet.

Aided and abetted by a drug-addled hippie lizard, a hard-hitting investigative reporter and a suicidal ship's computer, the Doctor has no choice but to travel back in time and discover exactly how he became a hero.

And then he finds out. He did it by sacrificing his life.

2013 BBC Books edition

The Beautiful Death is the ultimate theme-park ride: a sightseeing tour of the afterlife. But something has gone wrong, and when the Fourth Doctor arrives in the aftermath of the disaster, he is congratulated for saving the population from destruction – something he hasn't actually done yet. He has no choice but to travel back in time and discover how he became a hero. And then he finds out. He did it by sacrificing his life.

Plot

to be added

Characters

References

Alcoholic beverages

Cultural References

  • ERIC sings Don't Dilly Dally on the Way by Charles Collins.

Drugs

The Doctor

Famous Persons

  • Romana quotes Richard Dawkins' saying "However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain there are vastly more ways of being dead."
  • The Doctor and Romana quote Shakespeare's line "What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks, and formless ruin of oblivion." The Doctor also misquotes "Alas, poor Yorick!", a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
  • The Doctor quotes "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," a quote attributed to Mark Twain.

History

Literature

Planets

Species

Spaceships

Time Lords

  • Academi Plurix coined the term pre-jà vu, the sensation that one is going to have been somewhere before. It applies only to Time Lords.
  • The Doctor and Romana make multiple mentions of the Web of Time and the First Law of Time.

Notes

  • This novel was re-released on 7 March 2013 with a new cover to celebrate the Doctor Who 50th anniversary.
  • Before the Doctor sacrifices himself he tells Romana to "Keep Australia Beautiful". This is a humourous nod to the 1979 campaign Keep Australia Beautiful advertisement where Tom Baker reprises his role for a series of adverts.
  • Romana quotes Richard Dawkins and tells the Doctor that the quote was by someone he wouldn't know. This is a reference to Lalla Ward being married to Richard Dawkins after previously in a relationship with Tom Baker.

Continuity

Additional cover images

External links