The Left-Handed Hummingbird (novel)

The Left-Handed Hummingbird is the twenty-first novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It was written by Kate Orman, and was released in 1993. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Bernice.

Publisher's summary
'''He took up a firing stance, holding the thirty-eight out in front of him. ‘Mr Lennon?’ he said.'''

1968: Cristian Alvarez meets the Doctor in London.

1978: The great temple of the Aztecs is discovered in Mexico.

1980: John Lennon is murdered in New York.

1994: A gunman runs amok in Mexico City.

Each time, Cristian is there. Each time, he experiences the Blue, a traumatic psychic shock. Only the Doctor can help him -- but the Doctor has problems of his own. Following the events of Blood Heat and The Dimension Riders, the Doctor knows that someone or something has been tinkering with time. Now he finds that events in his own past have been altered -- and a lethal force from South America’s prehistory has been released.

The Doctor, Ace and Bernice travel to the Aztec Empire in 1487, to London in the Swinging Sixties, and to the sinking of the Titanic as they attempt to rectify the temporal faults -- and survive the attacks of the living god Huitzilin.

Characters

 * The Seventh Doctor
 * Ace
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Cristián Xochitl Alvarez
 * Professor Lawrence Fitzgerald
 * Iccauhtli
 * Ce Xochitl
 * Achtli
 * Lt. Hamlet Macbeth
 * Huitzilin

Communications technology

 * Cristián Xochitl Alvarez sends the Doctor, Ace and Bernice a letter, through UNIT.

Cultural references from the real world

 * Upon first viewing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Bernice mistakes it for a documentary.
 * Benny compares how they received Christian's note to Back to the Future.

The Doctor

 * The Aztecs call the Doctor a 'Midwife' - healer, curer.
 * The Doctor (when they arrive in 1968) suggests they visit Woodstock, two of his previous incarnations are there.

Drugs

 * The Doctor eats psilocybe mexicana mushrooms, which enhance his telepathic abilities.
 * The Doctor has three lumps of LSD-spiked sugar in 1968.
 * Through drugs and alcohol the gods can make paths into the world; "The cactus wine, the morning glory seed, the mushrooms - they are the causeways along which Huitzilopochtli can journey into Tenochtitlan."
 * Achtli, a novice priest, dies from taking the magic mushrooms that allow some people to see the Blue.

Fashion and clothing

 * Ace has a Hard Rock Café Svartos t-shirt.

Foods and beverages

 * Bernice eats pizza for the first time.

History

 * Ace asks the Doctor if this could be another example of Ishtar mucking around with history.

Individuals

 * Bernice Summerfield still doesn't trust the Doctor.
 * Cristián Xochitl Alvarez was known as 'Cris' in 1968.
 * Professor Lawrence Fitzgerald knows the Doctor.
 * Ace rescues a slave; Iccauhtli who was to be sacrificed. He dies after he and Ace got into a fight with some warriors, he drowned in a canal after a warrior split his rib cage open.
 * Ce Xochitl is a judge and Iccauhtli's father.

Psychic powers

 * Ace recalls Saul and the natural way the psychic energy pooled to create him.
 * When the casing of a Dalek shatters it sounds like chips in hot oil, according to Ace.
 * During a conversation about vampires the Doctor says "The Mara fed on raw emotion (and) the Fendahl sucked souls whole."
 * Ace gets hit by a telepathic bomb.
 * After a telepathic event attacks her Bernice attacks someone with a frying pan.

Races and species

 * The Blue that infected Huitzilin was from a crashed Exxilon device.

Religion

 * Achtli is a novice priest and touched by the Blue he is also Ce Xochitl's son.

TARDIS

 * The Doctor fixes the chameleon circuit in his adopted TARDIS from the alternate universe where he died.
 * The Doctor meditates beside the pool while Ace goes swimming. The Doctor had to jettison the original pool when it began to leak into the co-ordinate circuits.

UNIT

 * Lt. Hamlet Macbeth was part of UNIT, he created the Paranormal Division.
 * Bernice calls in Hamlet Macbeth, who brings UNIT when the Doctor becomes infested by Huitzilin.
 * Ace contacts Air Commodore Ian Gilmore to try and get clearance to get the Doctor out of the UNIT facility.
 * By 1994, Mike Yates doesn't speak to anyone, shunning reporters.
 * Corporal Bell was promoted to Captain, but was brain damaged in a car accident.
 * Harry Sullivan had made a nurse sign Herbert Clegg's death certificate as heart attack.

Continuity

 * The First Doctor visited the Aztec period in DW: The Aztecs, Barbara's attempt to change history is mentioned several times throughout this novel.
 * Corporal Bell appeared in DW: The Mind of Evil and The Claws of Axos.
 * Hamlet Macbeth reappears in NA: Happy Endings.
 * Gilmore first appeared in DW: Remembrance of the Daleks.
 * The Doctor gets put on a gurney and wheeled into a morgue with 'John Doe' on his toe tag, exactly what happens later in DW: Doctor Who.
 * The Doctor mentions visiting Woodstock and that at least two of him are there already, one is the Second Doctor in TN: Wonderland.
 * Hubert Clegg died in part one of DW: Planet of the Spiders.
 * The Garvond and Silurians that the Doctor mentions appeared in NA: The Dimension Riders and Blood Heat (respectively).
 * Exxilons previously appeared in DW: Death to the Daleks.
 * Corporal Bell also appears in PDA: The Face of the Enemy.
 * This story takes place contemporaneously with NA: Nightshade in which the Doctor and Ace likewise visit England in December 1968.

Timeline

 * This story takes place after NA: The Dimension Riders
 * This story takes place before NA: Conundrum