Virgin New Adventures

The New Adventures published by Virgin Books were a series of original, full-length Doctor Who novels that continued the adventures of the Seventh Doctor (and, initially, Ace) following on from the TV story, Survival. As the books were geared for an older audience, they included mature themes, strong language, violence and sexual elements. One book in the series, Shakedown, was unique, being a novelizsation of the non-BBC spin-off production, Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, greatly expanded to include the Doctor.

The series reflected sometimes inconsistent knowledge of the Doctor Who universe and some notable divergences from known Doctor Who continuity. For example, they claimed that Time Lords are not born, but rather grown from looms, and that the female Prime Minster mentioned in Terror of the Zygons (TV story) was actually Shirley Wlliams.

The series concluded with the Eighth Doctor novel The Dying Days. The series ended because, following the broadcast of the 1996 TV movie, BBC Books took over the license for publishing original Doctor Who fiction, although there was an overlap of more than a year to allow Virgin to publish its contracted novels. One change saw the book line change its branding, relegating the Doctor Who logo to the spine and rebranding the series as "The New Adventures", with the publication of Bad Therapy.

After The Dying Days was published, the books continued with Bernice as the principal character in a new series of novels which were officially dubbed "The New Adventures" (with a new "NA" logo introduced).

Virgin launched two spin-off lines following the initial success of the NA line: the Decalogs, a series of five short story collections, and the Missing Adventures, chronicling the adventures of the first six Doctors.

Although the continuity of the NA line was initially ignored by the BBC Books lines, this was eventually relaxed and references to NA and MA began to appear. Steven Moffat described the New Adventures books as "a separate (and equally valid) continuity" to the BBC Wales television series in DWM 482.

One NA novel, Human Nature, was later adapted as the television episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood in 2007, while several stories with the Seventh Doctor were adapted into audio from 1999 onwards by Big Finish Productions, either directly or altered to feature Bernice Summerfield's supporting cast instead of the Doctor.

Continuity

 * The New Adventures introduced a few new companions into the life of the Doctor: Bernice Summerfield (debuting in Love and War), Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej (debuting in Original Sin) and Wolsey the cat (who debuted in Human Nature).
 * Ace was written out in Love and War and left the Doctor for three years (in terms of Ace's timestream) before reuniting with him in Deceit. During that time she changed considerably. Ace left a second time, permanently, in Set Piece. Ace's character development and departure were contradicted by later media, which also contradicted each other.
 * Apart from the novels, a few of the comics and audios take place specifically in the New Adventures continuity. These feature the Seventh Doctor, Bernice and the older version of Ace.
 * Eternity Weeps portrays the death (some years in the future, from the viewpoint of readers when the book first came out) of the Third Doctor's companion, Liz Shaw.
 * Several novels of the New Adventures featured old foes from the TV series, including:
 * Timewyrm: Exodus - The War Chief
 * Iceberg - Cybermen and the Cyber-Controller
 * Blood Heat - Silurians and Sea Devils
 * No Future - The Monk and the Vardans
 * Blood Harvest - Great Vampires
 * First Frontier - The Master
 * Toy Soldiers - Ogrons (cameo only)
 * Head Games - Valeyard (illusion only)
 * Shakedown - Sontarans and the Rutan Host
 * GodEngine - Daleks (cameo only)
 * The Dying Days -Ice Warriors

Adaptations

 * Birthright and Just War were adapted, without the Doctor, the rights to which character they did not have permission to use at the time, as the first Bernice Summerfield productions from Big Finish Productions.
 * An adaptation of Human Nature appeared in Series 3 of Doctor Who.
 * Love and War was adapted by Big Finish into an audio drama in 2012; the company now had full rights to include the Doctor. This was followed by an adaptation of The Highest Science and another of Damaged Goods.

Major links to the Virgin Missing Adventures

 * A story strand which originated in Blood Harvest continued into the first Missing Adventure Goth Opera in an effort to get readers to buy both books.
 * Shakedown and Lords of the Storm both featured the Sontarans in the same month.
 * The Missing Adventure Cold Fusion featured both the Fifth Doctor and his companions with the Seventh Doctor and Roz and Chris Cwej from the New Adventures.

Production notes

 * So Vile a Sin was the final book to be published. It was published out of narrative sequence due to delays preventing its completion. The death of a major character in that book was meant to be a surprise, but because of the production delay this was no longer possible, and the novel was adapted accordingly: its prologue began with the funeral for the character, and the event was made an intrinsic part of the narrative, rather than a shock conclusion.