The Many Hands (novel)

The Many Hands was the twenty-fourth novel in the BBC New Series Adventures series. It was written by Dale Smith and featured the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones.

Publisher's summary
Edinburgh, 1759.

The Nor' Loch is being filled in. If you ask the soldiers there, they'll tell you it's a stinking cesspool that the city can do without. But that doesn't explain why the workers won't go near the place without an armed guard.

That doesn't explain why they whisper stories about the loch giving up its dead, about the minister who walked into his church twelve years after he died.

It doesn't explain why, as they work, they whisper about a man called the Doctor. And about the many hands of Alexander Monro.

Plot
Prologue In the year 1773 Kathrine is making dinner for her academic husband who is out a lot befor he brings home an abandoned baby which they name after him, Alexander .

1 in 1759 a stagecoach is attacked bye a mysterious figure Martha and the 10th doctor investigate by chasing the coach down which turns out to have ben Franklin on board having been chased. The doctor tries to stop the mysterious figure while martha uses setting three four seven on the screwdriver to bring the coach to a stop.

2 Martha examine the mysterious figure which turns out to be a two day old corpus of a man that died of brain haemorrhage. Captain Mcallister, an English redcoat, send the driver and passenger on their way and then arrests the doctor for public nuisance and Martha for wearing pantaloons.

3 Martha and the doctor are paraded by an escort of solider to be taken to the Tollbooth. The doctor explains that Ben Franklin is here to pick up his award for science from the university. As the trip from Britain to America take two months he came to Edinburg to do some sight seeing. When they arrive at the Tollbooth the doctor explains that council meeting happen above and prisoners are kept below. The doctor and math ran away to the Grassmarket where the doctor using his physic paper claims to be Baronet Jones of Nova Scotia and if the soldier step on their land it would be an act of war.

Characters

 * Tenth Doctor
 * Martha Jones
 * Katherine Monro
 * Alexander Monro
 * McAllister
 * Benjamin Franklin
 * Arthur King
 * John Monro
 * Gordon Yarwood
 * Neil McVicar
 * Howkins
 * Onk Ndell Kith
 * John Connolly
 * Gordy
 * Mac
 * Farr
 * Craig
 * Ernest Wright

Worldbuilding

 * The Doctor states he knew someone who fought at Culloden.
 * The Doctor tells Martha not to be offended if the holograms in the TARDIS call her Rose.

Continuity

 * The Doctor ponders whether the entities possessing the dead are Gelth. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
 * The TARDIS' Laika Protocol, designed to dispose of the Doctor's corpse in the event of his death, was named after the burial site of the Relic alongside Laika. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
 * The Slitheen family are mentioned. (TV: Aliens of London, World War Three, et al.)
 * Martha refers to "alien witches". (TV: The Shakespeare Code)

Audiobook

 * This novel was released as an audiobook as part of the New Adventures box set along with Martha in the Mirror and Snowglobe 7 on 9 October 2008 by BBC Audio and read by David Troughton.