Valentine's Day (unproduced novel)

✅ Valentine's Day was a planned Lawrence Miles Eighth Doctor novel that would have continued the "fractured biodata" plotline that began in Interference - Book Two. After Justin Richards became editor of the range, Miles tried adapting it to work as a conclusion to the Eighth Doctor's "Earth arc" that began in The Burning, but the rights with the Daleks fell through, and the novel was rejected in place of Escape Velocity.

In 2000 and 2001, Lawrence Miles said that he regarded Valentine's Day as "without question, the strongest plotline I've ever come up with" and "the best thing I've ever done in Doctor Who" that "would've said everything I've ever wanted to say in a Doctor Who novel." He suggested that he could turn it into an ongoing Doctor Who Magazine comic.

Summary
In the story, the Doctor would have realised that, due to the damage done to his timeline in Interference - Book Two, if he were to regenerate again, he would become something "so completely horrible that even Faction Paradox weren't ready for the consequences." As a result, he would go into a self-imposed exile in an attempt to avoid risk.

However, during this retirement, a balance in the universe was disturbed, and the Daleks became a major power, threatening even the Time Lords. This prompted the Doctor to come out of his exile to train a replacement under the combined guidance of the Time Lords, Faction Paradox, and anyone else who wanted to be involved. Their training ground would have been Earth's 21st century, beginning on 14 February 2000 and ending exactly one hundred years later. The story would have ended with the Doctor and his replacement entering into a life-or-death struggle.

Behind the scenes

 * Lance Parkin's planned, ultimately-unproduced novel Enemy of the Daleks would also have explored the Daleks' involvement in the War in Heaven.