Trading Futures (novel)

Trading Futures
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Fitz, Anji
Main enemy:	Baskerville, Jonah Cosgrove, Onihr
Main setting:	Earth, 21st century; The Moon
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Lance Parkin
Release details
Release number:	55
Release date:	8 April 2002
Format:	Paperback Book; 22 Chapters, 249 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-53848-1
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
← Previous	Anachrophobia
Next →	The Book of the Still

Trading Futures was the fifty-fifth novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Lance Parkin, released 8 April 2002 and featured the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor.

Publisher's summary

"Welcome to the future."

The early decades of the twenty-first century. All the wars have been won. There are no rogue states. The secret services of the world keep the planet electronically monitored, safe from all threat. There is no one left for the United States and the Eurozone to fight. Except each other.

A mysterious time traveller offers a better future — he has a time machine, and with it, humanity could reach the next stage of evolution, they could share its secrets and become the new Lords of Time...

...either that, or someone could keep the technology for themselves, and use it to fight the ultimate war.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Eighth Doctor
• Fitz Kreiner
• Anji Kapoor
• Jonah Cosgrove
• Baskerville
• Jaxa
• Roja
• Bermuda Atkins
• Dee Gordon
• Felix Mather
• Malady Chang
• Penny Lik
• Relker
• Pad
• Onihr Leader
• Onihr Deputy Leader
• Control

Worldbuilding

The Doctor

• The Doctor uses the Bocca Scale to measure time disturbances.

Fitz Kreiner

• Fitz uses a RealWar robot in what he thinks is an arcade game.

Anji Kapoor

• Anji thinks about "current" technology in relation to Hitchemus's.

Politics

• The Eurozone, or EZ, is one of the larger superpowers in the "near future". Britain is part of the EZ.
• Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Eastern Turkey, and Kurdistan are countries. Three of them are in civil wars.
• Felix Mather is President of the United States and the only politician trusted by Jonah Cosgrove.
• Malady Chang is a CIA agent, working for Control.

Time Lords

• After the destruction of the Time Lords, there are now humans with access to time travel technology.

Other species

• The Onihr are among many alien races seeking time travel in the post-Gallifrey universe, and have discovered some Time Lord relics (including the high-collared robes) in their quest.

Baskerville

• Baskerville is the richest man in the world. He possesses his own personal stealth Concorde.

Sabbath

• Jaxa and Roja are Sabbath's Time Agent mercenaries. Jaxa is a historian.

Notes

• Stylistically (right down to the cover), Trading Futures is a little bit like a James Bond movie, with the Doctor blowing up spy boats, car chases and international travel, bombs in interesting places... plus some genuine (non-coffee machine) time travel (and space alien rhinos).
• The date isn't given but Anji Kapoor, born in 1973 and taken from 2001, thinks that the pensioners she meets could have gone to school with her, and that a young actress in her twenties would have been in nappies when Anji left her time. This would roughly be around the 2030s.
  • This is further supported when Malady learns that the Doctor stole Felix Mather's space shuttle in 1989 (PROSE: Father Time); she had previously assumed that the Doctor was in his early forties and therefore believes that he couldn't have been more than ten in 1989.
• The "dancing flame women" on the cover is a reuse of the fire image from the novel The Adventuress of Henrietta Street; the silhouette of the Doctor can be seen in one of the women.

Continuity

• Fitz learnt to speak Chinese during his time brainwashed for Communist China. (PROSE: Revolution Man)
• Fitz wanders the TARDIS corridors and hears something scratching behind the walls. The source of the noise is revealed in PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles.
• The Onihr are aware that the Doctor only has one heart at this point, his second heart having been removed in PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.
• The Onihr are also aware of time travel development in the 51st century (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, PROSE: Emotional Chemistry) and the identities of the four surviving elementals. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
• Fitz tells the Onihr about meeting Kala in the 1930s, (PROSE: Eater of Wasps) Noel Coward's shears which cut through the Very Fabric of Time and Space, (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen) the experiment at Station 40, (PROSE: Anachrophobia) and Sabbath in the 18th century. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
• The Doctor first met Felix Mather while hijacking the Atlantis space shuttle. (PROSE: Father Time)
• Cosgrove has survived the Martian invasion, (PROSE: The Dying Days) and the Fall of Learman. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
• The Doctor remembers meeting Time Agents in 1933. (PROSE: Eater of Wasps)
• Europe and the United States are Zones. (TV: The Enemy of the World)

External links

• Official Trading Futures page at Penguin Books
• Trading Futures at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Trading Futures at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Trading Futures