I admit it; I've purchased every 8DA book that was published. The Faction Paradox story was fascinating, Ancestor Cell was tragic and intriguing, the resulting amnesia and plot points in Henrietta Street made it all worthwhile, but I was really disappointed in the ending of the story. I had hoped that they would have come up with some kind of rationale for bringing back Gallifrey from its destruction, and instead we got a so-so resolution in The Gallifrey Chronicles that only explained the radical transformation of the TARDIS interior.

I know that the plot of the NAs and 8DA are not considered cannon, and while I'd like Benny to get an official introduction to the Whoniverse I can accept that there's way too many concepts covered in the books that can not translate to the TV screen. (And some of them shouldn't.) I don't regret reading most of the line, because there were enough good stories to make it worth the energy, but I had hoped for more. Maybe I built it up too much.

And then they copped out on killing Fitz. Bastards.

(Hopefully this is the right forum for this. I'm assuming that the "Legacy" section is reserved for TV episodes, and this is the place for NA/8DA/Big Finish/etc.)

I agree about Fitz. I liked him, but they really should have killed him. Actually, no. They should have killed bloody Trix. If you've read all the books, then does she really just appear from nowhere? That's the way it seems.

Other, fairly random thoughts. The cover to The Book of The Still is great. I'd love to get an enlargement of that, and hang it on my wall.

Compassion. I quite liked Compassion, but she was terribly underused. What happened to her at the end of Shadows of Avalon was pretty cool, but she left the series only a few books afterwards. Come to think of it, I really enjoyed Shadows of Avalon on the whole. That's where I got my screen name from. Though Cavis and Gandar were a little annoying. The substance was good, but the style, not so much.

I also have all of the 8DAs, most of the Bennys, and a smattering of the Faction Paradox novels. For the most part, I thought the 8DAs fell into the same problem: they started off well, muddled for a few hundred pages, then raced too fast to an ending. Bit like my sex life, really.

I thought they could have done more with them. I did like that they did fully flesh out the Eighth Doctor, and there were some books that were surprisingly good and inventive (Interference), but I also just wished for something more.

I think the last book I picked up was the Annual, but haven't read it yet.

Are the FP books any good? Because I liked them in the 8DA's, and I've been thinking about ordering them for a while.

Side note: my favourite bookshop has a Dalek in the corner. The owner claims it's authentic, and was actually used on the show.

I am quibbling, but they DID kill Fitz! What we have now is only an ersatz copy that the Doctor remembered into Kode. The original Fitz came to a really nasty end......

Personally, I found a lot of the FP stuff a bit hard going - books like The Taking of Planet 5 and the Blue Angel, got a bit WTF for me. The Virgin Books did a similar jump of the couch when they got into that Telepath Arc (The Death of Art anyone?). I liked the 8D stuff better with Anji onboard (though I know that's a minority opinion). And yeah Foolish - I have every 8D book and Trix sort of turned up with no explanation (as far as I can see....). I thought she was pretty unusual - in fact after the boredom of Sam Jones (who they also killed off!), the female companions were interesting, Compassion, Anji, and a mean spirited old thief like Trix.

OT - Pinwiz, hi from way back - who'd have thought that we would have the option to watch all new Who, and that it would have it's own site on TWOP! Was in your home town recently too!

I think that if you like Lawrence Miles' Who novels and Dead Romance, you'll enjoy them. Though I've only read The Book Of The War and This Town Will Never Let Us Go so far, so can't comment on the others - I've got Of The City Of The Saved, but haven't had the chance to read it yet.

I'd suggest getting Dead Romance first if you haven't read it already - Mad Norwegian have republished it with a few changes and a couple of extras - then follow it up with Book Of The War (which comes after Alien Bodies and Interference, in as much as chronology means anything) and then if you like those, try This Town...

I have most of the 8DA books, but haven't reached the end yet. By now alot of the books are in used book stores. Some used book stores are agreements with chains like Barnes & Noble to sell books that have been sitting on their shelves for awhile. The books are perfectly new, just not fresh anymore. Unfortunately, some used book stores only have the vaguest idea of what they have and don't have searchable online catalogs, so it requires abit of leg work.

I can't answer everything, but I can answer this: Trix was the con artist Sabbath hired in 'Time Zero'. She very clearly sneaks into the TARDIS during the incredibly contrived scene at the end where the Doctor unlocks and opens the door, then they hear a noise and he, Anji, and Fitz all troop slowly and conspicuously out of sight of the TARDIS doors for long enough for her to enter, then return.

She makes brief appearances in a few of the subsequent books, and finally at some point in between 'The Last Resort' and 'Timeless' she reveals her presence to the TARDIS crew. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a personality until 'To the Slaughter', and it's not much of one even then.

Time Zero. I can't even remember what happens in that one. Was it the one with the boats? The one with the diamonds?

Ah, it was the one with that cool cover. I don't remember ever wanting to reread it. Hell, there are many that I don't want to reread. Some I didn't even finish in the first place.

But some of the covers are great. Time Zero & Book of the Still stand out in my mind.

Wasn't Time Zero the book where Sabbath collapsed the multiverse into a single timeline, which eventually was broken apart again in the one with the diamonds? Or something? Bueller?

Time Zero.

I really really really really really wish they had been able to procure the rights to the Daleks for Sometimes Never. They were originally slated to be Sabbath's employers. Would've been a much stronger reveal than the lameass Council of Eight.

I'm probably in the minority but I admired how they held back on restoring the Doctor's memory and Gallifrey. I think it adds a lot to the Ancestor Cell that it had catastrophic consequences that weren't be cleared up a few books later.

The way I saw all the timeline/multiverse stuff...

Normally, there's just one universe but with a wealth of possibilities. The big picture is might be set (WW2) but the details can be changed.

The paradox the Doctor created with Fitz's journal in Time Zero blew it up into entirely seperate universes and timelines. The problem was that there was so many of them competing for a finite amount of energy that the whole thing was going to collapse.

In Timeless, the Doctor is able to fix things by getting Fitz's journal to the bookstore and then multi-verse collapses down to one universe. However, because of Sabbath and the Council of Eight's machinations, it's a single iron-clad timeline where everything is predetermined and no real decisions can be made except by the Doctor.

Once he opens the last Schroedinger's vault in Sometimes Never, the universe of limitless possibilities is restored to its normal state.

Ideally with deaths of numerous companions (Sarah Jane, Mel, Sam, Harry, Jo, Ace, etc) they orchestrated in other books reversed...

Apparently only some of the companion deaths were reversed (Harry, for one). Others, like Mel and Sam stayed deceased, unfortunately. The only ones rescued were those stuck in the Schrodinger cells.

I bought three of these in a cheap-books shop for reading on holiday, but found out they were all supposed to be part of a giant arc, and so haven't read them yet. How linked are they, and should I try to find the whole set?

Depends on which ones you bought.

The back pages of the books used to have a list of all of them, but after about 50 books that got unwieldy. Some of them still have advertisements for the books directly before and directly after it.

The BBC website has a listing the books through "The Deadstone Memorial", with the oldest book "The Eight Doctors" at the bottom of the list. I think the Telos novellas might be mixed into that list though. Some of the links have more information like a copy of the cover and back blurb for each novel but others just links to the BBC Shop. After "The Deadstone Memorial" was published "To the Slaughter" (2/2005), "The Gallifrey Chronicles" (6/2005) and "Fear Itself" (9/2005) which all have separate pages on the website.

ETA: "Ancestor Cell" is one of the places it went all wonky.


As pointed out by timtn awhile back on the Merchandise thread, the first books of the series are out of print and going for outrageous prices on Amazon (less so in the UK), so finding a complete set might be difficult. The first few books only had the prices printed in pounds, they didn't start listing a price in dollars (US and Canadian) until the 7th book.

Thanks! I think I'll just read them and fill in the gaps with library books. I have 'Achronophobia', 'Camera Obscura' and 'Time Zero', because I liked the sound of the back-cover blurbs.

Good luck with that. The books can be as confusing as hell to people who have read all the books, so just sit back and enjoy the ride. Luckily those 3 books were published relatively close to each other ("Camera Obscura" and "Time Zero" are back to back) and late enough in the series that you'll completely miss a couple of weird plot twists.

Okay reading this thread has again piqued my interest in the whole FP thing. I have 'Unnatural History', 'Interference' (1 & 2), 'The Adventuress of Henrietta Street' (which I've never finished), 'The Ancestor Cell' and 'The Gallifrey Chonicles' but I know there's more to it than just those ones, can anyone let me know which salient ones I've missed?

Alien Bodies. That's where the whole thing starts.

I'd also suggest "The Taking of Planet 5" (have some asprin on hand) and "The Shadows of Avalon" for general plot development and the Brigader.

After Ancestor Cell, I'd take the time to read pretty much everything thru "The Crooked World". There's not much to the overall arc between the Doctor's return to Fitz and the TARDIS and "Henrietta" but overall there are some great stories to be told... "Escape Velocity", "Intelligent Tigers", "City of the Dead", "Anachrophobia", and the completely wonderful "Hope" (!!!).

"The Shadows of Avalon" is a great book. Its written by Paul Cornell who also wrote the TV episode "Father's Day". However, the ending won't make sense unless you've muddled through the craziness of the previous book (I guess "The Taking of Planet 5". The fallout doesn't hit for a couple of books.)

My favorite is "Father Time", however that requires at least a sentence or two to explain what happened in "Ancestor Cell". Its not really classic Doctor Who, but its fun and makes me sappy.

Yeah, I quite like Shadows of Avalon. It's where I got my screen name.

Which book is the one where Compassion becomes a Tardis? I haven't been able to identify it, and I'd like to read it.

Thanks.

Shadows of Avalon, by Paul Cornell. One of the better EDAs, though there are a couple of annoying characters. They serve the plot well enough, but annoy me in the process.

The essential books to understand the arc are:

Alien Bodies
Unatural History
Interfearance (I and II)
The Blue Angel (which is in itself a sequel to the Scarlette Empress)
The Taking Of Planet Five
The Shadows Of Avalon
The Banquo Legacy
The Ancestor Cell
The Burning
Father Time
Escape Velocity (this one sucks. Massively. Badly.)
Fear Itself
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
Camera Obscura
Time Zero
The Infinity Race
The Domino Effect
Reckless Engineering
The Last Resort
Timeless
Emotional Chemsitry
Sometime Never...
Halflife
The Tomorrow Windows
The Gallifrey Chronicles


Bearing in mind that msot of these aren't the best novels in the range. The ones I've put in bold I consider to be largely awesome. Alos awesome: Seeing I, Vampire Science, Beltempest, Wolfspane, The Turing Test, Earthworld, The Year of Intelligent Tigers, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Anacrophobia, the Book of the Still, History 101, The City of the Dead and The Crooked World.

Plus I have an odd soft spot for Frontier Worlds because Compassion spends the entire book being awesome. Ignoring Fitz's bitching, doing awesome James Bond stuff, chopping executives into small fleshy bits of plant.