Heart of TARDIS was the thirty-first novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Dave Stone, released 5 June 2000 and featured the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield and the Fourth Doctor, Romana I and K9.

This was the first multi-Doctor novel in the Past Doctor Adventures line up, though in BBC Books' overall publishing line up the most recent multi-Doctor novel was PROSE: Interference - Book One/Interference - Book Two. Unlike previous multi-Doctor stories the Second and Fourth Doctors do not meet in this novel.

Publisher's summary[]

In the American Midwestern town of Lychburg, something is afoot. Its citizens are being killed in inexpressibly horrible and brutal ways and the police don't have a clue who's responsible. The only suspects are a mysterious and sinister stranger, who calls himself the Doctor, and his young companions Jamie and Victoria.

The Fourth Doctor and Romana, meanwhile, have been summoned by the Gallifreyan High Council. A force has been unleashed into the space/time continuum... a force so unimaginably terrible that it is set to rip the universe itself apart and plunge it into primal, screaming chaos from which nothing will survive.

Of course, since something of this nature happens every other day of the week, the Doctor's really far more interested in finding out what's happened to a close personal friend, who seems to have vanished under mysterious circumstances. And quite right, too. The fate of a universe plunging into foetid and unending chaos can look out for itself for a change...

Plot[]

to be added

Characters[]

• Second Doctor
• Jamie McCrimmon
• Victoria Waterfield
• Fourth Doctor
• Romana I
• K9 Mark II
• Wblk
• The Brigadier
• Sergeant John Benton
• Police Chief Clancy Tilson
• Katharine Delbane
• Colonel Haasterman
• Sohn
• Prime Minister
• Norman Manley
• Myra Monroe
• Daniel Michael Slater
• Jim McCrae
• Lieutenant Major Ernest Derricks
• Sergeant Smee

Worldbuilding[]

Biology[]

• John Benton was exposed to something during his career in UNIT that enables him to hold off the effects of an anaesthetic dart for a short time.

Culture[]

• Monty Python and The Holy Grail is mentioned.
• A woman (implied to be Margaret Thatcher) is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• Ronald Reagan is President of the United States. His administration was investing in Christian Fundamentalism and the "Star Wars" program.
• Astonishing Stories of Unmitigated Science! was a magazine.
• Snail Women from Uranus is a film starring Candy Crawford and Lara Dane.

• It features the planet Proxima XIV.
• After the woprat's influence is removed, it becomes a short story in Astonishing!. In this version, Norman Manley meets a stripper called Dorothee McShane.

Technology[]

• The Fourth Doctor used a Pifco transistor radio in making his tracking device.
• Victoria expresses familiarity with such technology as hypergravity belts, jet-skimmers and atomic-powered ornithopters.

The Doctor[]

• The Second Doctor can play the recorder while hanging upside down.
• The Second Doctor claims that his own inability to control the TARDIS is the result of security protocols that prevent thieves being able to control the ship properly; he attempts to bypass these by disabling other security protocols, including those responsible for preventing the TARDIS from accidentally materialising inside other objects or in immediately hostile environments such as deep space or the heart of a sun.
• The Fourth Doctor reflects that one of the things lost during his forced regenerations was the knack for making soufflés.
• The Second Doctor recalls that he has been "something of an acrobat in his original body, before catabolism had taken its toll.
• The pages of Astonishing! refer to "Dr John Smith" who "[disappears] for years at a time in the company of his young 'assistants'". It mentions his invention of the cheese drive (which he had championed in Astonishing! itself), the discovery of Pellucidor and the PrantiBrantic processes which influence the world.
• Astonishing! reviews Dr John Smith's book Future Impact: The Apocalyptic Backlash, which asserts that the world is being invaded by Futurity, resulting in acceleration through time at 1 second per second per second.

Individuals[]

• Victoria Waterfield is afraid of rats and spiders.
• K9 Mark II has been left behind and recovered by the Doctor after so many long absences that Romana speculates that he must be the oldest coherent lump of matter in the universe when they got him out of the Big Huge and Educational Collection of Old Galactic Stuff.
• Victoria mentions her father.
• Victoria's aunt, twice removed lived in Bolton in the 19th century.
• The founder of Astonishing! disappeared in an ornithopter accident over the Malagasy South Seas.
• Delbane works for the Divisional Department of Special Tactical Operations (Provisional), or the Provisional Department for short, seconded to UNIT.

Species[]

• The Daleks, upon hearing rumours of Collectors present near their system, pretend that their planet had been destroyed.
• The Second Doctor notes that his people are sensitive to the "shape" of the world, allowing him to sense that he is in a pocket dimension such as the one containing Lychburg.
• The Fourth Doctor met two Jarakabeth. One was impersonating Aleister Crowley, the other was Katharine Delbane.

Locations[]

• Haasterman traverses Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. North of these roads is Fitzrovia and to the south, Soho.
• The Doctor mentions the late Byzantine era on Earth, the Cool Cheese Millenium on Jupiter, the year 3000 and last Thursday afternoon as possible destinations.
• The Fourth Doctor and Romana retrieve K9 from the Big Huge and Educational Collection of Old Galactic Stuff. Rooms at the collection was Big Pretend-Move Animals But Don't 'Cos They're Dead And Have Sand Stuck Up Them and What Human-Type Monkey Hominids Got Up To On Planet Dirt.
• The Second Doctor, Victoria and Jamie previously visited NovaLon Hypercities in the 22nd century. Victoria attempts to use a card from the New Fiduciary Treasury of the PractiBrantic Apostates.
• They have also visited the 20th century together on at least one occasion.
• Romana briefly visits "Pyramid Wharf", which is still under construction.

TARDISes[]

• If a TARDIS is stolen, then self-proliferating command-level polyviral automemes are activated which results in the ability to control the flight-path of the TARDIS.
• Certain TARDIS fail-safes include protocols which prevent materialisation around a solid object, the heart of a sun, or in another universe.

Notes[]

• The story is split between two connected narratives, one set in England focusing on the Fourth Doctor, Romana I and UNIT (even-numbered chapters) and the other set in the US city of Lychburg featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria (odd-numbered chapters). The final chapter, Chapter 25, features both Doctors.
• The Fourth Doctor sees and hides from the Second Doctor in the TARDIS console room at one point; the two never actually meet, with the Fourth hiding under the console on the opposite side from his past self until the Second Doctor leaves the console room again.
• Many of the characters in the town are references to characters from The Simpsons. Dr Nick (Dr Rick), Dr Hibbert, comic book guy and others make noticeable appearances to the Second Doctor. A bartender named "Moe" is mentioned.
• The book Future Impact by John Smith reviewed by Astonishing! in the appendix of the novel provides a possible explanation for the UNIT dating controversy.
• While no explicit year, or even decade is given in the story, the Prime Minister is heavily implied to be Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) and One Canada Square is still considered to be "half-built" (constructed from 1987-1991).

Continuity[]

• The Fourth Doctor is on his quest for the Key to Time. (TV: The Ribos Operation, etc)
• As the TARDIS malfunctions, the Fourth Doctor says, "Oh no, not again!", something his eighth incarnation would later say in a similar situation. (TV: Doctor Who)
• The Fourth Doctor claims to have witnessed some Time Wars, which might explain why he knows about the Charon. (PROSE: Sky Pirates!) He discusses Rassilon discovering the secrets of time travel by stealing the technology of a faction who attacked Gallifrey, "in retaliation for things we did to them before we'd even heard of them in the first place." (COMIC: Star Death, 4-D War, Black Sun Rising)
• A Chelonian matter-disrupter is present at the Collection. The Chelonians first appeared in PROSE: The Highest Science and its associated prelude.
• Delbane uses the Brigadier's spacetime telegraph to contact the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons)
• Jamie mentions his first meeting with the Doctor. (TV:The Highlanders)
• Victoria writes in Victoria Waterfield's journal, which would later serve as a framing narrative in PROSE: The Age of Ambition.
• Victoria, although used to technology in her travels, cannot cope with the idea of escalators. She reminds herself that she has seen "...metal men who walked." (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
• The Second Doctor refers to his body as "new," referencing his recent regeneration from his previous incarnation. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
• The Second Doctor was attempting to visit London in the late 20th century where he has a number of friends. He is likely referring to Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who left the TARDIS in 1965 in TV: The Chase, Dodo Chaplet, who left the following year in TV: The War Machines and Polly Wright and Ben Jackson, who left also left the TARDIS in 1966 in TV: The Faceless Ones.
• When the Golgotha Project activated the magical item, code-named "the Arimathea Artefact," it opened a "rift," similar to the one in Cardiff. (TV: The Unquiet Dead, etc)
• As the Fourth Doctor closes the TARDIS door, part of his scarf is shut in it, something he would later do. (TV: Shada) In this instance, the scrap of scarf stays behind, fluttering to the ground.
• As the Second Doctor is near death, the Fourth Doctor feels weak. A similar event would happen to the Sixth Doctor in TV: The Two Doctors.

External links[]

• Heart of TARDIS at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Heart of TARDIS at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Heart of TARDIS