BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures

The BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures was a series of original paperback novels published by BBC Books from June 1997 to June 2005, taking over the Doctor Who franchise from the Virgin New Adventures line. The first BBC Book release was in fact Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film, a novelisation of the 1996 telefilm; however, this is not considered part of the EDA series, which launched with a novel featuring all eight incarnations of the Doctor.

Initially, the novels were not linked to Virgin Books' previous Doctor Who New Adventures line, but as the series progressed, the barriers began to come down; as a result, many EDAs contain characters and references to events in the Virgin series.

While the EDA novels' sexual or "adult" content was not as explicit as the Virgin series, notable themes and undertones often gave major characters a degree of sexual and gender ambiguity or expression apart from heterosexuality and cisgenderism, including the Doctor.

The EDA novels were marked by complex and lengthy story arcs, some lasting over many books, in particular a series of stories relating to a great Time War. The novels also spearheaded the "Post-War universe" utilized by the Faction Paradox series. Elements of and references to various accounts of future incarnations of the Doctor were implemented into the series' lore, most notably The Curse of Fatal Death and Scream of the Shalka.

Although the final EDA release was The Gallifrey Chronicles, published in June 2005, the following September one final Eighth Doctor novel, Fear Itself, was published, albeit under the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line, recognising the coming of the Ninth Doctor to television.

With more than seventy novels published, the Eighth Doctor Adventures is the longest-running series of novels featuring any single incarnation of the Doctor to date.

In 2005 BBC Books retired its EDA and PDA lines, preferring to focus its publishing efforts on novels based upon the revived TV series. Although there was speculation that the Eighth Doctor's adventures might continue in a revived PDA line of books, this did not occur. The literary adventures of the Eighth Doctor continued in the Short Trips short story anthologies published by Big Finish Productions (many of which were written by veterans of the EDA and PDA ranges), until that series was also retired in the spring of 2009. BBC Books and Puffin have included the Eighth Doctor in various short story series and collections since.