Tangerineduel/Sandbox 8

So Vile A Sin
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Roz, Chris
Main enemy:	the Brotherhood
Main setting:	2 January, 2982 - September, 2982
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writers:	Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman
Release details
Release number:	56
Release date:	May 1997
Format:	Paperback Book, 400 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20484-0
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	Damaged Goods
Next →	Bad Therapy

So Vile a Sin is the fifty-sixth Virgin New Adventures novel in the series. However, due to writing and completion difficulties it was the last novel in the series featuring the Doctor to be published in May 1997. It is also the last novel in the series to feature Roz Forrester.

Publisher's summary

"If you step into history," said the Doctor, "I won't be able to protect you."

"This isn't history," said Roz. "This is family."

The Earth Empire - the Imperium Humanum, upon which a thousand suns never set - is dying.

The Great Houses of the Empire manoeuvre and scheme for advantage; alliances are made; and knives flash in the shadows. Out among the moons of Jupiter, another battle is just beginning, as an ancient brotherhood seeks limitless power and long-overdue revenge.

The Doctor returns to the thirtieth century, searching for the source of a terrifying weapon. He fears a nightmare from his own past may be about to destroy the future. Nothing must be allowed to get in his way.

But the Doctor has reckoned without the power of history - which has its own plans for the wayward daughter of the House of Forrester.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Roz Forrester
• Chris Cwej
• Leabie Forrester

References

The Doctor

< The Doctor

• The Doctor suffers a one sided heart attack, and has a vision of Death tormenting him about his coming demise.

Gallifreyan technology

< Gallifreyan technology

• Roz flattens an N-Form with dwarf star alloy.

Individuals

< Individuals

• Due to her time spent outside of her timezone, Roz is now younger than her younger sister Leabie.
• After killing Fenn Martle, Roz thought about becoming an acolyte at the Temple of the Goddess.
• Roz is buried in the Umtata Reclamation Zone on a sunny day. She is buried next to her nephew and niece.

Moons

< Moons

• Iphigenia a quarter of the moon has a lot of Time Lord technology in it.

Planets

< Planets

• Orestes is here named as the Ogron homeworld.

Psychic powers

< Psychic powers

• Ley lines are universal lines of psionic power.

Religion

< Religion

• The Temple of the Goddess is in the Odysseus Crater on Tethys.

TARDIS

< TARDIS

• TARDIS warships, from the times of the battle against the Great Vampires they carried bowships, they were comet sized.

Notes

• So Vile A Sin was to be written by Ben Aaronovitch. Due to various problems, Kate Orman assisted him in finishing it. However, it was still published late. The exact nature of the author's difficulties have never been fully clarified, with a hard drive failure and/or chronic writer's block being the two most widely reported at the time. As a result, although it occurs earlier in the continuity of the NA adventures, it was actually the last of the series to be published, being released after the NA's only Eighth Doctor novel, The Dying Days. This led to an unavoidable plot jump for readers, who went from PROSE: Damaged Goods to Bad Therapy only to discover the absence of Roz; they had to wait until the delayed publication of So Vile a Sin to find out what happened.

• According to the acknowledgements on page 313 of So Vile A Sin: "Kate here. After Ben's troubles in writing So Vile A Sin, including a disastrous hard-drive crash, I stepped in at the last minute to finish it. Some of the book survived the crash, other bits existed as printouts, and Ben provided me with extensive plot and background notes to complete the bulk of the story."

Continuity

• This novel follows on from the events in PROSE: Damaged Goods.
• Death taunts the Doctor by telling him that his seventh incarnation will die without warning, without purpose, afraid and alone. (TV: Doctor Who)
• One alternative version of the Doctor was able to save Adric (TV: Earthshock), another had his brain fried by a computer while substituting for a dead synch-op on Sea Base 4 in 2084 (TV: Warriors of the Deep), another never went to Androzani Minor (TV: The Caves of Androzani), another had his throat cut by Shockeye, another arrived 30 seconds before Oscar Botcherby was killed by Shockeye in Seville, Spain in 1985 instead of 30 seconds afterwards (TV: The Two Doctors), another lived in a parallel universe and visited Earth occasionally spreading rumours that King Arthur was about to return (TV: Battlefield), another was able to save Jan Rydd and his fellow Travellers on Heaven in 2570 (PROSE: Love and War), another was beheaded by an Ice Warrior on Peladon in 3985 (PROSE: Legacy) and another settled down and lived with his wife in San Francisco (TV: Doctor Who).

External links

• So Vile A Sin at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: So Vile a Sin at The Whoniverse
• Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide to So Vile a Sin