Genocide (novel)



Genocide was the fourth BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel featuring the Eighth Doctor and Samantha Jones. It was written by Paul Leonard. This novel also features Jo Grant, who last appeared in novel form in the PROSE novel Speed of Flight. This was the first full length story to feature an older Jo Grant. Katy Manning would reprise the role, showing a much different outcome of Jo Grant's life in the 2010 TV story Death of the Doctor.

Publisher's summary
Years after leaving UNIT, Jo Grant receives a plea for help from an old acquaintance. A palaeontological study of the earliest known humans is apparently under threat from a UNIT force led by a captain who does not officially exist. Investigating further, she begins to find herself out of her depth - and out of the twentieth century altogether...

Meanwhile, the Eighth Doctor and Sam visit Earth in 2109 - but there is no trace of the human race. Earth is home of the Tractites, a peaceful race who have been living there for hundreds of thousands of years. Astonished and appalled, the Doctor travels back in time to see just what went wrong in Earth's prehistory.

Why have Jo and the expedition been taken back in time? Are the Tractites all they seem? Finally, separated from the TARDIS, the Doctor's last chance to put things right rests with Sam - but has even she turned against him?

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Eighth Doctor
 * Sam Jones
 * Jo Grant
 * John Benton
 * Rowenna Michaels
 * Julie Sands
 * Mauvril
 * Kitig
 * Axeman
 * Gavril
 * Jacob Hynes
 * Narunil

Empires

 * Humans from the Earth Empire invaded Tractis.

Fashion and clothing

 * The Doctor is still wearing the shoes that Grace Holloway gave him.

Individuals

 * The Doctor speaks of Davros, saying, "my old friend Davros", to Sam.
 * Sam Jones is still seventeen.
 * Cliff Jones and Jo Grant are separated. They have a son named Matthew.
 * Jo Grant blasts away Tractites to make sure her future would still be there.
 * Rowenna Michaels and Julie Sands are attacked and killed by wild dogs.

Planets

 * Tractis is the home planet of the Tractites.
 * Paratractis is the name of Earth in the alternate timeline.

Species

 * Sam mentions Zygons and Vampires (whom she's met) and Daleks (whom she's yet to).
 * The Tractites are half-horse, half-ox, with four eyes and two hands with three fingers.
 * At one point Jo thinks to herself, "She made herself remember the jungles of Spiridon, the Daleks cruising through the mist. Autons, faceless faces turning the corner - Sea Devils, Xarax, deadly parasitic Axons."
 * The Doctor and Sam go to see the Empress and see Earth reptiles, Draconians, Ice Warriors, Zygons, GorEntelech and Tractites kneeling to her. The Doctor doesn't kneel, so neither does Sam.
 * Mauvril mentions Earth reptiles.

Theories and concepts

 * The Time Vortex and the universe were thrown into chaos by the temporal paradox caused by Sam, the Doctor and the time trees' interference.

Time travel

 * The Time Trees allowed for barely controlled time travel.

United Nations Intelligence Taskforce

 * Brigadier Winifred Bambera is Benton's superior, although Benton's position is now in a purely administrative position at UNIT.
 * Jo has been on the UNIT books since the 1970s.

Continuity

 * TV: The Green Death introduced Cliff Jones and showed him and Jo planning to get married.
 * The last contact the Doctor had with Jo was a letter. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
 * The model train set from PROSE: Model Train Set is seen.
 * The Doctor mentions Davros in this novel and later meets him in PROSE: War of the Daleks.
 * Jo saw the jungles of Spiridon in TV: Planet of the Daleks, Axons in The Claws of Axos, Sea Devils in The Sea Devils, Autons in Terror of the Autons and Xarax in PROSE: Dancing the Code.
 * The depiction of Jo in this book is difficult to reconcile with her later appearance in TV: Death of the Doctor. We can perhaps imagine that this book takes place in a "rough patch" of Jo's marriage, but she is well and truly on her own here. The word "divorce" doesn't appear in the book, but it's clear she has total financial responsibility for her child and herself. Moreover, she's only got one child in this story, Matthew, who just started high school. Death to the Doctor says she's got seven kids. It's hard to see how she could have six more kids after Matthew, with Cliff, starting at roughly the age of thirty-five. Additionally the separation/divorce from Cliff has left her having to hold down two jobs in Hackney. How exactly she was supposed to be globetrotting given this bleak reality is unclear.
 * Russell T Davies stated in an interview about TV: Death of the Doctor that he wanted to rework the life of Jo Grant after her time with the Third Doctor, stating that he didn’t feel it right that Jo would eventually divorce the man she left the Doctor and all of time and space for.
 * Jo also states that she never saw the Doctor again between the events of TV: The Green Death and TV: Death of the Doctor.