Set Piece (novel)

 is the thirty-fifth New Adventures novel. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice Summerfield. This is the last novel to feature Ace as an ongoing companion in the Virgin New Adventures novel range. She reappears as a "guest character" in Happy Endings and Lungbarrow.

Publisher's summary
''Dead. He was dead. How the hell was she supposed to do CPR on a man with two hearts?''

There's a rip in the fabric of space and time. Passenger ships are disappearing from the interstellar traffic lanes. In an attempt to find out who's behind the disappearances, the Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be captured. But when Bernice's rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, the time travellers find themselves scattered throughout history.

Ace, stranded in Ancient Egypt, struggles to survive in an environment as alien as a distant planet: the Earth 3,000 years before she was born. She manages to find employment as a nobleman's bodyguard. And then she comes face to face with the metal horrors which have pursued her through time — the creatures she saw kill the Doctor.

Chapter Titles
First Piece: To Break a Butterfly upon a Wheel Second Piece: Butterfly Wings Third Piece: On a Wing and a Prayer
 * Introduction
 * 1: Initial Conditions
 * 2: Run! Run! As Fast As You Can!
 * 3: Interesting Times
 * 4: Rent
 * 5: Yesterday, When I Was Mad
 * 6: In Taberna
 * 7: Opening Flower
 * 8: Mandelbrot Set Piece
 * 9: Raiders of the Lost Akhetaten
 * 10: Please Do Not Step on the Butterflies
 * 11: Open Wide! Come Inside!
 * 12: In which Ace Traverses a Tunnel Through the Space-Time Vortex, Unprotected by a Force Shield and Uncertain of Whether the Walls of the Tunnel Will Collapse
 * 13: Intersection of Three Sets
 * 14: The Oncoming Storm
 * 15: Hurt/Comfort
 * 16: Set, Game, and Match
 * 17: Exit the Warrior
 * 18: The New Adventures

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Ace
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Sedjet
 * Vivant Denon
 * Sesehset / Sesehaten
 * Pharaoh Akhenaten
 * Ship
 * Thierry

The Doctor

 * The Doctor has his thousandth birthday.
 * The Doctor knows how to speak French (separate from the TARDIS).
 * The Doctor suffers a double cardiac arrest.
 * He can go without sleep for forty-eight hours.
 * His blood is orange-red.

Ace

 * Ace's name is revealed as Dorothy McShane.
 * Ace becomes one of Sejet's bodyguards. She's called Tepy, which means "First One".
 * Ace leaves the Doctor; she is twenty-six.
 * Ace ends up in a relationship with one of Captain Sorin's ancestors, Count Nikolai Sorin, at one point.
 * Vivant Denon harbours Kadiatu.
 * Ace tells Sesehset about the butterfly effect.
 * She has nano-machines in her blood, and is later injected with further nano-machines by the Doctor tor repair her.
 * In ancient Egypt, Ace graffities "ACE WAS HERE" on a cliff. Benny later destroys it.
 * Ace hesitates before shooting Kadiatu, as it would be the 400th time she's killed a sentient being.
 * Ace leaves the Doctor, aged 26.

Foods and beverages

 * Bernice drinks absinthe and eats grapes in Cairo.
 * Benny's travelling bag holds gold, vodka, antibiotics and camping equipment.

Individuals

 * Time calls the Doctor her champion.
 * The Doctor first met Death on a Gallifreyan hill side.

Languages

 * Ace speaks Egyptian when stuck in Egypt, but doesn't realise it's because of the TARDIS until she's been there for several months.

Locations

 * Ace goes to Glebe (Sydney, Australia), aged thirty-seven.

Theories and concepts

 * Some of Death's "siblings" appear, including Pain and Time. All the Eternals (Time, Death, Pain) appear to be female.
 * Pain is older than Death.


 * Pain visits Benny in a dream, telling her of the vulnerable nerve cluster in a Time Lord's shoulder.
 * Pain clarifies for Benny that her mother (Claire Summerfield) was killed by the first Dalek beams during the attack on their colony.
 * The Doctor notes there are places in time where history can change, and he calls these "disequilibrium points."

Time Lords

 * The Doctor showed the Brigadier how to disable a Time Lord (in case the Master ever returns to Earth); a blow to the left shoulder on a Time Lord hits a vital nerve cluster.

Timeline

 * Ace visits Denon in 1815, aged twenty-eight.

Time travel

 * Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart's time machine has been knocking holes in space time.

Weapons

 * Ace carries a Draconian army knife.

Continuity

 * It's claimed here that Time Lord nanites can regrow limbs. The Tenth Doctor would later re-grow a hand shortly after his regeneration. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
 * Kadiatu recalls the Sol Transit System, the Thousand Day War, and the nuclear explosion she used to power her timeship. (PROSE: Transit)
 * The Doctor, Ace, and Benny visit a cafe on Argolis while tracking the temporal fractures. (TV: The Leisure Hive)
 * Whilst reading records of the history of Egypt, Ace finds references to Daleks in the pyramids. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
 * Upon first seeing her, the Doctor mistakes Kadiatu for Ruby Duvall. (PROSE: Iceberg)
 * Kadiatu will appear again,(PROSE: The Also People) as will Ace (PROSE: Head Games) who attends Benny's wedding. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
 * The Doctor compares his Ship infection to the protoplasm of Goibhnie. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark)
 * He has a conversation with an imaginary Benny and Ace. He previously spoke with an imaginary Benny when he thought she'd died. (PROSE: Falls the Shadow)
 * Benny recalls the Hoothi. (PROSE: Love and War)
 * Ace recalls Jan Rydd (PROSE: Love and War) and Alan; (PROSE: Blood Heat) the Doctor destroying Skaro(TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and trapping the Timewyrm;(PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation) and surviving Olleril, (PROSE: Tragedy Day) Peladon, (PROSE: Legacy) Belial, (PROSE: Lucifer Rising) and Antykhon. (PROSE: Birthright)
 * Benny and Ace encounter Setites, followers of Sutekh. (TV: Pyramids of Mars)
 * Denon has seen Ace's portait. (TV: Silver Nemesis)
 * Benny notes Ace's graffiti is older than the Exxilons visiting Earth (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird) and the Doctor challenging Fenric. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
 * The Doctor still has Cameca's brooch. (TV: The Aztecs, PROSE: White Darkness)
 * Ace tells the Egyptians the story of the traitor and the girl with magic powers. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
 * The Eternals Pain, Death, and Time appear in dreams, and the Doctor makes a deal with one again. (PROSE: Love and War)
 * Ace was transported in the time storm two millions years into the future to Iceworld. (TV: Dragonfire)
 * She uses the Sisterhood of Karn's salve in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
 * Pain shows Benny scenes of Ace and the Doctor with the Timewyrm (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys) and Ace, Robin Yeadon and the Doctor. (PROSE: Nightshade)
 * Ship's gatekeepers give Ace the same feeling she got from the Garvond's Time Soldiers. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders)
 * Pain tells Benny her mother was killed in the first Dalek blasts, and not stunned like she thought. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)
 * "Cruk" is a common swearword of Benny's time, which Ace also uses frequently. (PROSE: Love and War)
 * The Doctor tells Kadiatau about dimensional transference. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)