Speed of Flight (novel)

Speed of Flight
Doctor:	Third Doctor
Companion(s):	Yates, Jo
Main enemy:	Epreto
Main setting:	Nooma
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Paul Leonard
Cover by:	Alister Pearson
Release details
Release number:	27
Release date:	24 October 1996
Format:	Paperback Book; 27 Chapters, 256 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20487-5
Virgin Missing Adventures
← Previous	Twilight of the Gods
Next →	The Plotters

Speed of Flight was the twenty-seventh novel in the Virgin Missing Adventures series. It was written by Paul Leonard and featured the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and Mike Yates. The novel is notable for featuring Yates's apparent death, until being restored to life by the Doctor.

Leonard dedicated the novel to Jon Pertwee, who passed away on 20 May 1996 as the novel's final chapter was being edited.

Publisher's summary

"Those who are intelligent, strong and virtuous are promoted. The stupid, the weak and the unworthy will die. How else is it possible for the world to make progress?"

The TARDIS lands on Nooma, a world in the middle of an industrial revolution. But the Third Doctor, Jo and Mike Yates quickly discover that there is no limit to the upheaval. The sky is alive, and at war with the ground. The continents are on the move, competing for a place under the sun. And somewhere, there is a starship...

Mike finds himself committed to a fight where his only option is to kill or be killed. Jo is caught in a workers' revolt. And the Doctor must find out what is really happening to Nooma before the struggle for survival kills the world and everyone on it.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Third Doctor
• Jo Grant
• Mike Yates

Noomans

• Epreto
• Herik Lofanu
• Xaai
• Kimji Duboli
• Johannas Karilee
• Aapurian
• Eeneeri
• Jobanu
• Aaviar Omonu
• The Dead

Worldbuilding

Individuals

• Sergeants Benton and Bell set up Jo and Mike on a blind date.

Literature

• Reekaa's Compendium is a book of Nooman legends.
• The Doctor claims that "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" is an old Venusian nursery rhyme.

Planets

• Karfel is located in the same galactic cluster as Earth. The height of its civilisation is twenty thousand years after Jo's time.

Vehicles

• Ships on Nooma include steamwings and pedithopters.

Notes

• This story takes place between Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death, and shortly after Leonard's preceding novel in the line, Dancing the Code.
• The title is likely a pun on the term "speed of light".
• The name of the planet (Nooma) is never given in the text, only on the back cover.
• AHistory dates the story to 22,000, apparently assuming that the Doctor's attempt to visit Karfel succeeded, only getting the planet wrong.

Continuity

• Mike jokes that Jo could have been meeting an Auton. (TV: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons)
• Jo refers to Catriona Talliser and the Xarax. (PROSE: Dancing the Code)
• The Doctor attempts to take Jo and Mike to Karfel. The presence of a painting of him in his third incarnation on the planet Karfel and a statement from Jo to Sarah Jane Smith indicates he eventually did. (TV: Timelash, Death of the Doctor)
• Jo mentions that she and the Doctor never got to Metebelis III. (TV: Carnival of Monsters, The Green Death)
• The Fourth Doctor would later visit another planet which also had artificial suns. (TV: The Sun Makers)

External links

• Speed of Flight at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Speed of Flight at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Speed of Flight