OOOH WEEE OOOOOOH…
In 1991, Virgin Publishing launched a line of original Doctor Who fiction. Continuing where “Survival” left off, the book range followed the further adventures of the seventh Doctor and Ace, building onto the Doctor Who universe in whatever ways the authors could imagine and telling stories of a breadth and scope impossible for the television show. The line was so successful that Virgin launched a companion line of “Missing Adventure” stories in 1994 featuring Doctors 1 through 6 and their various companions. Fans starved for new Who stories that were tackling more adult themes and modern storytelling techniques made the line such a success that, after the 1996 television movie, the BBC bought back the novel rights and started their own line of new Who fiction starring the eighth Doctor and a new group of companions. To this day, BBC Books publishes a new Who novel every month, coming up with new and entertaining ways of putting the universe and the Doctor through the wringer.
The novels have done a lot to not only add depth and richness to the Whoniverse, but also to cement the Doctor’s place as one of the great science-fiction heroes of modern storytelling. To date, between the Virgin line and the BBC line there are have been 229 novels of original, canonical Who fiction published in the past 13 years.
I own 220 of them. I intend to review all of them, in chronological order, on this blog.
THERE IS NO ESCAPE.