Christmas on a Rational Planet (novel)

Christmas on a Rational Planet
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Roz, Chris
Main enemy:	Carnival Queen
Main setting:	Woodwicke, 1799 Arizona, 2012
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Lawrence Miles
Cover by:	Mike Posen
Release details
Release number:	52
Release date:	18 July 1996
Format:	Paperback Book; 14 Chapters, 256 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20476-X
Virgin New Adventures
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Next →	Return of the Living Dad

Christmas on a Rational Planet was the fifty-second Virgin New Adventures novel. It featured the Seventh Doctor, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester. Christmas on a Rational Planet was author Lawrence Miles' first novel for Doctor Who. He later wrote two novels for the Virgin Books's "Bernice Summerfield" New Adventures. He also contributed significant elements to the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels in his books Alien Bodies, Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two. The beginnings of ideas and elements in those novels can be seen in this novel.

Publisher's summary

"An end to history. An end to certainty. Is that too much to ask?"

December, 1799. Europe is recovering from the Age of Reason, the Vatican is learning to live with Napoleon, and America is celebrating a new era of independence. But in New York State, something is spreading its own brand of madness through the streets. Secret societies are crawling from the woodwork, and there's a Satanic conspiracy around every corner.

Roz Forrester is stranded in a town where festive cheer and random violence go hand-in-hand. Chris Cwej is trapped on board the TARDIS with someone who's been trained to kill him. And when Reason itself breaks down, even the Doctor can't be sure who or what he's fighting for.

Christmas is coming to town, and the end of civilisation is following close behind...

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Roz Forrester
• Chris Cwej
• The Carnival Queen
• Daniel Tremayne
• Erskine Morris
• Isaac Penley
• Marielle Duquesne
• Matheson Catcher
• Raphael
• Samuel Lincoln
• Tourette
• Jake McCrimmon
• Cardinal Catilin
• Cardinal Pontormo
• Cardinal Roche
• Cardinal Tuscanini

Worldbuilding

Books

• Genetic Politics Beyond the Third Zone is a book by Gustous R Thripsted.
• K. S. Lethbridge-Stewart wrote The Zen Military - A History of UNIT in 2006. It was never published.
• Miles de Selby wrote Letters from Earth, which was published in 1993.

The Doctor

• The Doctor possesses an amaranth.
• The Doctor refers to the Eighth Man Bound.

Time Lords

• Time Lords physical appearance are a fragment of their vast multi-dimensional form existing in a metaspace realm invisible to humans.
• Laws of probability bend around Time Lords, tipping the odds in their favour.

Drugs and medicines

• Vraxoin is known to Roz. It was discovered on the Cygnus Rim.
• Cocaine, caffeine and marijuana are all legal in 1799.

Individuals

• Stattenheim (of the Stattenheim Remote Control) lived in 16th century Berlin.
• Jake is familiar with the Siege of Quebec.

Laws

• The presence of an ID implant in the anatomy of an Imperial citizen is mandatory under the Sixteenth Criminal Justice Empowerment, except in those cases outlined in the Corporate Faiths Amendment of 2939.

Locations

• The United States fell sometime in the 21st century.
• The Catholic Church kept items deemed too dangerous for the public to know of in three places: The Library of St John the Beheaded in London for texts, the Collection of Necessary Secrets in Vatican City for other non-living things, and the Crow Gallery in South Africa for living specimens.

Planets

• On Minyos they cast out the heliomancers from their society.
• Astra is a terrible place, like many of Earth's colonies in the 25th century.

Theories and concepts

• Grandfather Paradox is mentioned for the first time.
• Roz tries to kill who she thinks is Abraham Lincoln's grandfather, thus creating a paradox and making the Doctor find her.

Notes

• This novel is rumoured to contain a reference to every TV story, although some are very obscure (such as Lincoln being a reference to The Chase or the reference to Gallifreyan prisoner tattoos being a reference to either Spearhead from Space or Doctor Who and the Silurians). It requires a distinctly critical eye to identify them, should the rumour be correct.
• Lawrence Miles specified his idea for the cover, with a clockwork claw holding a crystal ball reflecting the Doctor. However, the actual cover focused more on the Doctor's nose than the clockwork claw, and it was so unpopular that it was changed before publication.
• This was the first Doctor Who novel that Lawrence Miles pitched, though he had originally planned for it to occur earlier in the New Adventures series; according to Miles, while helping then-range-editor Rebecca Levene, Gareth Roberts clumsily threw the pitch document behind a cupboard, only to mistakenly recover it from that location a year later whilst searching for chocolate biscuit crumbs. However, he has clarfied he did not witness this incident and is only going by hearsay.

Continuity

• PROSE: Alien Bodies, Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two further expand upon the idea of paradoxes and Grandfather Paradox.
• The Collection of Necessary Secrets reappears in PROSE: De Umbris Idearum.
• The planet Astra was Vicki and Bennett's destination in TV: The Rescue.
• It's established that the mysterious tattoo seen on the Third Doctor's arm in TV: Spearhead from Space immediately after his regeneration was in fact a Time Lord mark signifying an exile.
• Amaranths later reappear in PROSE: Against Nature.
• The Carnival Queen shows Cwej a pre-universe city carved in the side of gigantic tusks. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory)
• Roz mentions PROBE and LONGBOW as organisations who have knowledge of the Doctor. (HOMEVID: The Zero Imperative, PROSE: Just War)
• Ramón Salamander is still suffering a ghastly existence within the Time Vortex. (TV: The Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear)
• The Doctor mentions "ruthless militant jellyfish", (TV: Horror of Fang Rock) "murderous pot-plants", (TV: Meglos) "insane giant prawns", (TV: The Invisible Enemy) "world-conquering crabs", (TV: The Macra Terror) "killer confectionery" (TV: The Happiness Patrol) and "octopi with delusions of godhead” (TV: The Power of Kroll).
• A computer bank labelled "PRIME" appears, referencing TV: Step Into the 80's! ^[+]Loading...["Step Into the 80's! (TV story)"] and On Through the 80's! ^[+]Loading...["On Through the 80's! (TV story)"], where a Prime Computer was installed in the Doctor's TARDIS.

Cover gallery

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  Original cover

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  Unused cover

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  Unused sketch cover

External links

• Christmas on a Rational Planet at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Christmas on a Rational Planet at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Christmas on a Rational Planet