The Left-Handed Hummingbird (novel)

The Left-Handed Hummingbird
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace, Benny
Main enemy:	Huitzilin
Main setting:	Tenochtitlan, 1487 Atlantic Ocean, 1912 London, 1968 to 1969 Mexico City, 1994
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Kate Orman
Cover by:	Pete Wallbank
Release details
Release number:	21
Release date:	2 December 1993
Format:	Paperback Book; 20 Chapters, 264 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20404-2
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	The Dimension Riders
Next →	Conundrum
DWM "New Adventures order"
← Previous	The Dimension Riders
Next →	Conundrum

The Left-Handed Hummingbird was the twenty-first novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It was written by Kate Orman and was released in 1993. It featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice.

Publisher's summary

He took up a firing stance, holding the thirty-eight out in front of him. "Mr Lennon?" he said.

• 1968: Cristian Alvarez meets the Seventh Doctor in London.
• 1978: The great temple of the Aztecs is discovered in Mexico.
• 1980: John Lennon is murdered in New York.
• 1994: A gunman runs amok in Mexico City.

Each time, Cristian is there. Each time, he experiences the Blue, a traumatic psychic shock. Only the Doctor can help him – but the Doctor has problems of his own. Following the events of Blood Heat and the Dimension Riders, the Doctor knows that someone or something has been tinkering with time. Now he finds that events in his own past have been altered – and a lethal force from South America's prehistory has been released.

The Doctor, Ace and Bernice travel to the Aztec Empire in 1487, to London in the Swinging Sixties, and to the sinking of the Titanic as they attempt to rectify the temporal faults -- and survive the attacks of the living god Huitzilin.

Chapter titles

Prologue - New York City, December 1980

First Slice

1. Mexico (Not Tenochtitlan)
2. Nine-tenths Below the Surface
3. Sun King
4. Pronounced Weet-Zeelo-Potch-Tlee
5. Into the Fire
6. Instant Zen

Second Slice

1. And the Smile on the Face of the Tiger
2. The Cat in the Hat
3. Number Nine
4. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Third Slice

1. Jingle-Jangle Morning

Interlude 1

1. You've Got Him Just Where He Wants

Interlude 2

1. Because He Doesn't Know the Words

Interlude 3

1. Futility
2. Epiphany
3. Tomorrow Never Knows

Plot

to be added

Characters

• The Seventh Doctor
• Ace
• Bernice Summerfield
• Cristián Xochitl Alvarez
• Professor Lawrence Fitzgerald
• Huitzilin
• Ce Xochitl
• Iccauhtli
• Achtli
• Coyolxauhqui
• Quauilticac
• Feliciano Nahualli
• Lt. Hamlet Macbeth
• Sir Charles
• Anna
• Elizabeth
• John
• Molly
• John Lennon
• Yoko Ono
• Mark
• Benjamin Alvarez
• Ocelot

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor, Benny and Ace were holidaying in Switzerland in 2030 prior to receiving the message from Christian.
• The Doctor and companions follow Huitzilin to the Titanic.
• Huitzilopochtli is pronounced Weet-Zeelo-Potch-Tlee.
• Benny thinks Darmok is a documentary.

Communications technology

• Cristián Xochitl Alvarez sends the Doctor, Ace and Bernice a letter, through UNIT.

Cultural references from the real world

• Upon first viewing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Bernice mistakes it for a documentary.
• Benny compares how they received Christian's note to Back to the Future.
• "Chilango" is Mexican slang for the city dwellers of Mexico City.

The Doctor

• Upon arriving in 1968, the Doctor suggests they visit Woodstock. Two of his earlier incarnations are there.

Drugs and medicines

• The Doctor eats psilocybe mexicana mushrooms, which enhance his telepathic abilities.
• The Doctor has three lumps of LSD-spiked sugar in 1968.
• Achtli, a novice priest, dies from taking the magic mushrooms that allow some people to see the Blue.

Fashion and clothing

• Ace has a Hard Rock Café Svartos t-shirt.

Foods and beverages

• Bernice eats pizza for the first time.
• Bernice eats hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut.

Individuals

• Ace rescues a slave, Iccauhtli, who was to be sacrificed. He dies after he and Ace get into a fight with some warriors. He drowns in a canal after a warrior splits his rib cage open.
• Ce Xochitl is a judge and Iccauhtli's father.

Psychic powers

• The Doctor recalls Saul and the natural way the psychic energy pooled to create him.
• Ace gets hit by a telepathic bomb.

Species

• The Blue that infected Huitzilin was from a crashed Exxilon device.

Religion

• Achtli is a novice priest and touched by the Blue. He is also Ce Xochitl's son.

TARDIS

• The Doctor fixes the chameleon circuit in his adopted TARDIS from the alternate universe where he died.

United Nations Intelligence Taskforce

• Lt. Hamlet Macbeth was part of UNIT. He created the Paranormal Division.
• By 1994, Mike Yates does not speak to anyone, shunning reporters.
• Corporal Carol Bell was promoted to Captain, but was brain damaged in a car accident.
• Harry Sullivan had made a nurse sign Herbert Clegg's death certificate as heart attack.

Notes

• Kate Orman was the first, and ultimately the only, woman to write an original full-length novel for either of Virgin's post-series lines; she would write or co-write several more books in the New Adventures series up to 1997.
• Interlude 3 is written from Bernice's diary.
• A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 207.
• Orman had been thinking about the storyline for years, and an early version was published as a short story in the Australian fanzine Pirate Planet. The novel sold enough copies that it was quickly reprinted by Virgin Books. Orman referred to the novel as Hummer.
• In one draft, there was a reference to the song "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by American rock band They Might be Giants, however this was removed upon Orman's friends laughing at the reference.

Continuity

• Barbara Wright's attempt to change history whilst visiting the Aztec period with the First Doctor is mentioned several times. (TV: The Aztecs)
• Corporal Bell appeared in TV: The Mind of Evil and The Claws of Axos.
• Ace contacts Air Commodore Ian Gilmore in an attempt to get clearance to get the Doctor out of the UNIT facility. Gilmore first appeared in TV: Remembrance of the Daleks.
• The Doctor gets put on a gurney and wheeled into a morgue with "John Doe" on his toe tag, exactly what would occur to him in the circumstances of his death. (TV: Doctor Who)
• The Doctor mentions visiting Woodstock and that at least two of him are there already. One is the Second Doctor. (PROSE: Wonderland)
• Herbert Clegg died in TV: Planet of the Spiders.
• The Doctor refers to the trio's recent encounters with the Garvond and Silurians. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders and Blood Heat respectively)
• Exxilons previously appeared in TV: Death to the Daleks.
• Corporal Bell also appears in PROSE: The Face of the Enemy.
• The BBC science fiction series Nightshade is being repeated on BBC2 in December 1968. (PROSE: Nightshade)
• During a conversation about vampires, the Doctor refers to the Mara and the Fendahl.
• Ace asks the Doctor if this could be another example of Ishtar mucking around with history. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys et al)

External links

• Prelude to The Left-Handed Hummingbird as published in DWM #207
• The Left-Handed Hummingbird at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Left-Handed Hummingbird at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Left-Handed Hummingbird
• Hatching the Hummingbird by Kate Orman (Article) - TSV 35
• The Care and Feeding of the Hummingbird by Kate Orman (Article) - TSV 39