Blood Heat (novel)

Blood Heat was the nineteenth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series of novels. It was written by Jim Mortimore and features the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice. This is the first New Adventure novel to delve into an alternate universe, spawned from alternate events of Doctor Who and the Silurians.

Publisher's summary
''Not men, Ace. Silurians. The original rulers of the Earth.''

The TARDIS is attacked by an alien force; Bernice is flung into the Vortex; and the Doctor and Ace crash-land on Earth.

An attack by dinosaurs convinces the Doctor that he and Ace have arrived in the Jurassic Era. But when they find a woman being hunted by intelligent reptiles, he begins to suspect that something is very wrong.

Then they meet the embittered Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, leading the remnants of UNIT in a hopeless fight against the Silurians who rule his world. And they find out that it all began when the Doctor died...

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Ace
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Liz Shaw
 * Jo Grant
 * Benton
 * Manisha
 * Alan
 * Julia
 * Jan

Aquatic vessels

 * The HMS Revenge carries nuclear missiles.

Biology

 * Morka injects Bernice Summerfield with a virus which cures the Race Memory fear.
 * The Silurian virus is known as "the Nightmare".

The Doctor

 * The Doctor has two more ribs than a human.
 * Morka killed the alternative Third Doctor, shocking the Doctor.
 * The Doctor performs a time ram to destroy this universe to save his own after lying to Ace and Benny about ensuring the Alternative Universe has a semi-natural lifespan.

The Doctor's items

 * Ace finds a sonic screwdriver in the (dead) Third Doctor's pockets.

Individuals

 * Jo Grant was sent to retrieve the launch codes the Brigadier planned to use. She goes insane from radiation exposure and Race Memory fear.
 * Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart injects a stimulant into Jo Grant to get information from her. It kills her.
 * Liz Shaw married a man named James Lester. He hit his head looking for food and died.
 * Bernice gets shot while trying to stop the nuclear missiles.
 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart bursts into tears over all the death he caused, including the shattered eggs of the Silurians.
 * Manisha saw her version of Ace die, an inversion of events in the primary universe, where Ace saw Manisha die when her flat was firebombed. (TV: Ghost Light)

Locations

 * Ophidian is a Silurian city on Earth.

Military

 * Ace has been out of the Spacefleet for a few months, though she still wears the uniform/body armour.

Species

 * The dilophosaurus is a type of theropod dinosaur.
 * The Doctor refers to Silurians as psionosauropodomorpha.
 * Ace adopts a compsognathus as a mascot.
 * An edmontonia knocks the TARDIS into a tar pit.
 * The Doctor, Ace and Jo ride ornithomimuses into a herd of seismosauruses.

TARDISes

 * The TARDIS falls through a puncture in the Time Vortex.
 * Ace lifts the TARDIS belonging to the alternate Doctor (which had fallen on its doors) single-handedly and with a broken arm.
 * Ace makes the (alternate universe) TARDIS materialise around the entire planet Earth, placing everything in a state of temporal grace.
 * The Doctor uses the secondary console room.
 * The Doctor takes his third self's TARDIS from the alternate universe as his is lost in a tar pit. This TARDIS has a working Chameleon Circuit.

Weapons

 * Ace's new variant of Nitro-9, Nitro-9 smart bombs can fly and accept verbal commands.
 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart launches a nuclear warhead at the Silurian capital city in Africa.
 * Ace has an oval scar on her stomach cause by a Special Weapons Dalek.

Continuity

 * Blood Heat marks the beginning of the pentalogy of New Adventure novels loosely known as the Alternative Universe Arc. This is comprised of this novel, The Dimension Riders, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, Conundrum, and No Future.
 * A similar journey into an alternate universe (which has an alternate version of UNIT and Silurians) occurred in COMIC: Final Genesis.
 * Blood Heat references TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians as its starting point for the divergent timeline. Deadly Genesis also branches off from the events seen in that story.
 * The Doctor's original TARDIS (here lost in a tar pit) is returned to him in PROSE: Happy Endings.
 * Manisha was mentioned in TV: Ghost Light.
 * The TARDIS similarly falls through a puncture in the time vortex in TV: The Age of Steel.
 * The Doctor may have been partially aware of the events of this story, including his own involvement with them, prior to his arrival in the alternative timeline as his previous incarnation once commented to his companion Evelyn Smythe that, from what he has heard, his future self is "always blowing up planets." (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor)