The Infinity Doctors (novel)

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prose stub

The Infinity Doctors was a BBC Books novel released on 16 November 1998 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Doctor Who. It was written by Lance Parkin and featured an unspecified incarnation of the Doctor.

Set primarily on Gallifrey, it also has within its narrative references to Gallifrey gleaned from all other previous appearances and references to Gallifrey.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

"Sing about the past again, and sing that same old song. Tell me what you know, so I can tell you that you're wrong."

Gallifrey. The Doctor's home planet. For twenty thousand centuries the Gallifreyans have been the most powerful race in the cosmos. They have circumnavigated infinity and eternity, harnessed science and conquered death. They are the Lords of Time, and have used their powers carefully.

But now a new force is unleashed, one that is literally capable of anything. It is enough to give even the Time Lords nightmares. More than that: it is enough to destroy them.

It is one of their own.

Waiting for them at the end of the universe.

Featuring the Doctor, this adventure celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of Doctor Who.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Gallifreyans[[edit] | [edit source]]

Time Lords[[edit] | [edit source]]

Sontaran delegation[[edit] | [edit source]]

Needle People[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Seal of Rassilon is an omniscate.
  • The Doctor's rooms have six sides. They hold many bookshelves, a wooden globe of Sol Three and a wine rack with a dozen of the galaxy's finest vintages. On the mantel is an ormolu clock. There are also two paintings: one computer painted, the second hand painted (by the Doctor) of a woman holding a scroll with the words "Death is but a door" written in High Gallifreyan. Speaking those words opens a door to a zero room where thousands of candles burn, honouring the woman in the painting.
  • The Doctor is a member of the High Council.
  • The Doctor offers tea to guardsmen Raimor and Peltroc.
  • The Doctor has a cat named Wycliff.
  • Ohm is an ancient Time Lord god.
  • Tyler's Folly is on the High Council agenda to be discussed as there are "disturbances" on the planet.
  • The Time Lords know of names that will appear in history books of the future: Varnax, Faction Paradox, Catavolcus, the Timewyrm; these are threats that the Time Lords are destined to survive.
  • The Time Lords know of a war against an implacable enemy, that will result in the destruction of Gallifrey, though even after several millennia of knowing about this they have not decided what action to take.
  • The Founders of Gallifrey are six individuals: Rassilon, Omega, the Other and three others.
  • Qqaba is a Population III star Omega deemed sufficient for detonation to give the Gallifreyans mastery over time.
  • Rassilon paraded the captured Eye of Harmony through the streets in the largest parade in history.
  • The Doctor uses a toy tafelshrew to distract a guard to get to his TARDIS.

Individual Gallifreyans[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Marnal is mentioned several times as a Time Lord who lacked planning in the wars he fought.
  • Morbius is also mentioned in the past tense.
  • Hedin is compiling a comprehensive history on Omega.
  • The Doctor is one of the highest ranking Prydonians.
  • Larna is one of the Doctor's most promising students. She develops a friendship with the Doctor.
  • Lord Savar lost his eyes a couple of regenerations ago. In his current body he is an accomplished telepath and has two distinct personalities.
  • The Magistrate wears black. He's the Doctor's oldest friend and sparring partner and has a goatee.

Gallifreyan locations[[edit] | [edit source]]

Gallifreyan technology[[edit] | [edit source]]

Groups[[edit] | [edit source]]

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

Locations[[edit] | [edit source]]

Objects[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Infinity Doctors was originally intended to be part of a two-novel series, with the other half called Mentor and written by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum. Though Orman and Blum were too busy with Seeing I to write Mentor, they later used elements of it in Unnatural History,[1] which featured the return of Larna and several mentions of the Needle.
    • The Needle is specifically mentioned in Unnatural History as the homeplace of the antagonist, Griffin, who worked for the Society to restore his family's reputation following the collapse of his father's business ventures. In The Infinity Doctors, Helios, an aged inhabitant of the Librarinth, came to the Needle to continue his father's work, and the Doctor recognised him from somewhere in his past. One of the original plans for The Infinity Doctors and Mentor was that one book would feature the other book's homicidal villain as "an old librarian who just wanted to be left alone", leading to the reader getting a different impression depending on which they read first.
  • The novel's depiction of Gallifrey draws upon Adrian Middleton's Gallifreyan chronology in the fanzine Apocrypha. Middleton's characters Tegorak and Pengallia are namedropped, with a scene where a character explores an abandoned Capitol room containing Tegorak's armour and does not recognize the name (in reference to Apocrypha's sheer obscurity).
  • At several points, The Infinity Doctors references the early 1990s proposed Doctor Who TV movies.
  • In an early chapter, the Doctor has a strange dream where he stands on Earth, watching the dying Sun be blotted out by a giant spaceship, alongside "a man his age, his height, but with flowing, shoulder-length hair." In Father Time, the Eighth Doctor would have the same dream, "a memory he'd never had", where he stood next to "a man his age, his height, but with closely cropped hair."
  • A "print on demand" reprint edition of this novel was made available on 31 August 2011 as part of BBC Books' revisiting adventures featuring the first eight Doctors. This book is also available as an ebook from the Amazon Kindle store.[2]
  • Released on the same day as The Infinity Doctors was the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Beltempest. From the Eighth Doctor range's start in June 1997, each Eighth Doctor novel was released on the same day as a BBC Past Doctor Adventures book, so many fans classify The Infinity Doctors as the 17th Past Doctor Adventures novel. However, BBC Books didn't include The Infinity Doctors in its lists of the Past Doctor Adventures or the Eighth Doctor Adventures, as published in later books such as The Taint; instead, The Infinity Doctors was listed in an "Other Fiction" section alongside The Novel of the Film and the Short Trips anthologies.

Placement in the timeline[[edit] | [edit source]]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Parkin, Lance (1 January 2004). Interview: Lance Parkin. BBC Doctor Who website. Archived from the original on 21 March 2005. Retrieved on 15 August 2012.
  2. Doctor Who: Infinity Doctors on Amazon Kindle
  3. Parkin, Lance. Doctor Who, Chronologically. Lance Parkin. Retrieved on 15 August 2012.
  4. Parkin, Lance. A Word with Lance Parkin. Doctor Who Reprint Society. Retrieved on 15 August 2012.
  5. AHistory