Evolution (novel)


 * ''You may be looking for the scientific principle.

Publisher's summary
'Someone is tampering with the fabric of the human cell,’ the Fourth Doctor said darkly, ‘perverting its secrets to his own dark purposes.'

Sarah Jane wants to meet her fellow journalist Rudyard Kipling, and the Fourth Doctor sets the co-ordinates for England, Earth, in the Victorian Age. As usual, the TARDIS materialises in not quite the right place, and the time travellers find themselves pursued across Devon moorland by a huge feral hound.

Children have gone missing; at the local boarding school, the young Rudyard Kipling has set up search parties. Lights have been seen beneath the waters of the bay, and fishermen have been pulled from their boats and mutilated. Graves have been robbed of their corpses. Something is going on, and Arthur Conan Doyle, the ship’s doctor from a recently berthed arctic whaler, is determined to investigate.

The Doctor and Doyle join forces to uncover a macabre scheme to interfere with human evolution - and both Sarah Jane and Kipling face a terrifying transmogrification.

Characters

 * The Fourth Doctor
 * Sarah Jane Smith
 * Rudyard Kipling
 * Arthur Conan Doyle
 * Sir Edward
 * Sir Alexander Cromwell
 * Josh Andrews
 * Ben Tolliver
 * Ross
 * Billy
 * Breckinridge
 * Captin Grey
 * Alice
 * Lucy
 * Colley

Continuity

 * In several scenes told from Sarah Jane's point of view, she refers to the planet Karn and the encounter with Morbius in The Brain of Morbius. Specifically, she compares the moors to Karn and observes the effect that adventure has had on the Doctor's mood. Her observations imply this story takes place almost immediately after The Brain of Morbius concluded.
 * Sarah Jane swims in the TARDIS's "bathroom", not seen onscreen until DW: The Invasion of Time.
 * A crashed Rutan ship is key to the backstory; this story occurs (within the Doctor's personal chronology) prior to DW: Horror of Fang Rock, which is also about events set in motion by a Rutan crashing in an isolated part of the English coast.
 * Colonel Ross claims to be a special agent working directly under the command and authority of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and that it is his job to investigate those matters that lie outside of the conventional. This suggests he may have been a member of the Torchwood Institute.

Timeline

 * Evolution occurs after DW: The Brain of Morbius
 * Evolution occurs before TVC: Return of the Daleks

Behind The Scenes

 * This story suggests that Sherlock Holmes was inspired by The Fourth Doctor. This would mean that Tom Baker was the perfect choice for Holmes in 1982 television serial adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.