Heart of TARDIS (novel)

Heart of TARDIS was the thirty-first novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Dave Stone, released 5 June 2000 and featured the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield and the Fourth Doctor, Romana I and K9.

This was the first multi-Doctor novel in the Past Doctor Adventures line up, though in BBC Books' overall publishing line up the most recent multi-Doctor novel was PROSE: Interference - Book One/Interference - Book Two. Unlike previous multi-Doctor stories the Second and Fourth Doctors do not meet in this novel.

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

In the American Midwestern town of Lychburg, something is afoot. Its citizens are being killed in inexpressibly horrible and brutal ways and the police don't have a clue who's responsible. The only suspects are a mysterious and sinister stranger, who calls himself the Doctor, and his young companions Jamie and Victoria.

The Fourth Doctor and Romana, meanwhile, have been summoned by the Gallifreyan High Council. A force has been unleashed into the space/time continuum... a force so unimaginably terrible that it is set to rip the universe itself apart and plunge it into primal, screaming chaos from which nothing will survive.

Of course, since something of this nature happens every other day of the week, the Doctor's really far more interested in finding out what's happened to a close personal friend, who seems to have vanished under mysterious circumstances. And quite right, too. The fate of a universe plunging into foetid and unending chaos can look out for itself for a change...

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Second Doctor
• Jamie McCrimmon
• Victoria Waterfield
• Fourth Doctor
• Romana I
• K9 Mark II
• The Brigadier
• John Benton
• Wblk
• Clancy Tilson
• Katharine Delbane
• Joel Haasterman
• Sohn

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Biology[[edit] | [edit source]]

• John Benton was exposed to something during his career in UNIT that enables him to hold off the effects of an anaesthetic dart for a short time.

Culture[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Monty Python and The Holy Grail is mentioned.
• A woman (implied to be Margaret Thatcher) is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• Ronald Reagan is President of the United States. His administration was investing in Christian Fundamentalism and the "Star Wars" program.

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

• The Second Doctor can play the recorder while hanging upside down.
• The Second Doctor claims that his own inability to control the TARDIS is the result of security protocols that prevent thieves being able to control the ship properly; he attempts to bypass these by disabling other security protocols, including those responsible for preventing the TARDIS from accidentally materialising inside other objects or in immediately hostile environments such as deep space or the heart of a sun.
• The Fourth Doctor reflects that one of the things lost during his forced regenerations was the knack for making soufflés.

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Victoria Waterfield is afraid of rats and spiders.
• K9 Mark II has been left behind and recovered by the Doctor after so many long absences that Romana speculates that he must be the oldest coherent lump of matter in the universe when they got him out of the Big Huge and Educational Collection of Old Galactic Stuff.
• Victoria mentions her father.

Species[[edit] | [edit source]]

• The Daleks, upon hearing rumours of Collectors present near their system, pretend that their planet had been destroyed.
• The Second Doctor notes that his people are sensitive to the "shape" of the world, allowing him to sense that he is in a pocket dimension such as the one containing Lychburg.
• The Fourth Doctor met two Jarakabeth. One was impersonating Aleister Crowley, the other was Katharine Delbane.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

• The Fourth Doctor sees and hides from the Second Doctor in the TARDIS console room at one point; the two never actually meet, with the Fourth hiding under the console on the opposite side from his past self until the Second Doctor leaves the console room again.
• Many of the characters in the town are references to characters from The Simpsons. Dr Nick (Dr Rick), Dr Hibbert, comic book guy and others make noticeable appearances to the Second Doctor. A bartender named "Moe" is mentioned.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

• The Fourth Doctor is on his quest for the Key to Time. (TV: The Ribos Operation, etc)
• As the TARDIS malfunctions, the Fourth Doctor says, "Oh no, not again!", something his eighth incarnation would later say in a similar situation. (TV: Doctor Who)
• The Fourth Doctor claims to have witnessed some Time Wars, which might explain why he knows about the Charon. (PROSE: Sky Pirates!) He discusses Rassilon discovering the secrets of time travel by stealing the technology of a faction who attacked Gallifrey, "in retaliation for things we did to them before we'd even heard of them in the first place." (COMIC: Star Death, 4-D War, Black Sun Rising)
• Delbane uses the Brigadier's spacetime telegraph to contact the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons)
• Victoria has started a journal. She was depicted writing in a diary as early as COMIC: Bringer of Darkness.
• Jamie mentions his first meeting with the Doctor. (TV:The Highlanders)
• Victoria, although used to technology in her travels, cannot cope with the idea of escalators. She reminds herself that she has seen "...metal men who walked." (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
• The Second Doctor refers to his body as "new," referencing his recent regeneration from his previous incarnation. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
• When the Golgotha Project activated the magical item, code-named "the Arimathea Artefact," it opened a "rift," similar to the one in Cardiff. (TV: The Unquiet Dead, etc)
• As the Fourth Doctor closes the TARDIS door, part of his scarf is shut in it, something he would later do. (TV: Shada) In this instance, the scrap of scarf stays behind, fluttering to the ground.
• As the Second Doctor is near death, the Fourth Doctor feels weak. A similar event would happen to the Sixth Doctor. (TV: The Two Doctors)

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

• Heart of TARDIS at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Heart of TARDIS at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Heart of TARDIS