Birthright (novel)

Birthright is the seventeenth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It was written by Nigel Robinson, published in 1993, and featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny.

Publisher's summary
I feel like a pawn in a blasted chess game, Ace.' 'I know what you mean. Trouble is, they keep changing the chess-players.

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.

In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

Characters

 * Ace
 * Gets stuck in 22,000.
 * Took a trip with the Doctor to Africa 'a long time ago'. The Charrl's hive resembles Termite mounds which she saw there.
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Gets stuck in 1909.
 * Can't read Cyrillic.
 * She gets the flu.
 * the Charrl
 * Queen Ch'tizz
 * Mikhail Vladimir Popov
 * Returns for a brief cameo in Happy Endings
 * Jared Khan
 * Born 700 years ago.
 * Margaret Waterfield
 * Is Edward Waterfield's sister and Victoria Waterfield's paternal aunt.
 * Is murdered by Kahn's thugs.
 * Muldwych
 * Is most likely the 'Merlin' incarnation of the Doctor.
 * Got stranded on Antýkhon for 1,000 years.

Continuity

 * This novel runs parallel with the events of NA: Iceberg, with the Doctor being absent for the majority of Birthright. This was the first "Doctor-lite" novel under the New Adventures banner (Target Books previously published two non-Doctor original novels, Harry Sullivan's War and Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma), and in some ways was a rehearsal for the later Doctor-less series of novels featuring Benny that began in 1996.


 * The Charrl and Muldwych make an appearance in NA: Happy Endings.


 * The Charrl are to said to have created the 300 (of the 700) wonders of the universe, first mentioned in DW: Death to the Daleks.


 * The Doctor also encountered a renamed future Earth in DW The Mysterious Planet.

Timeline

 * This story takes place after DWM: Flashback
 * This story takes place before NA: Iceberg