Father Time (novel)

Father Time was the forty-first novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Lance Parkin, released 8 January 2001 and featured the Eighth Doctor and his adoptive daughter, Miranda Dawkins.

On the BBC Cult website, an "introduction" to Father Time, aptly named Father Time: "Set Visit", was released. It portrayed a speculative world in which Father Time was a serial of Doctor Who filmed in 2001.

Publisher's summary
"I love her," the Doctor said.

"Of course you do, she's your daughter."

Earth in the nineteen-eighties is a battleground. Rival alien factions have travelled from the far future to pursue their vendetta.

With UFOs filling the skies, a giant robot stalking the Derbyshire hills, and alien hunters searching for the mysterious Last One, the Doctor is the only man who can protect the innocents caught in the crossfire.

But old scores are being settled, the fate of a Galactic Empire is at stake, and, against his will, the Doctor is drawn into a decade-long war that will strike at those he holds most dear.

The Doctor has lost his memory, his friends, his past and his TARDIS.

All he has now is the love of his daughter.

But will even that be taken from him?

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Eighth Doctor
 * Miranda Dawkins
 * Claudia
 * Ferran
 * Prefect Zevron
 * Deputy Sallak
 * Debbie Castle
 * Alex
 * Arnold Knight
 * Barry Castle
 * Bob
 * Cate
 * Dinah
 * Gibson
 * Graltor
 * Joel
 * Kim Dawkins
 * Kirst
 * Felix Mather
 * Rum
 * Tarvin
 * Thélash
 * German man

The Doctor

 * The Doctor sees Mr Saldaamir and Daleks in a vision of his future.
 * The Doctor remembers waking up in a train carriage over a century ago.
 * The Doctor has an eidetic memory.
 * On 28 May 1976, while amnesic, the Doctor spent time with a young widow named Claudia in England.
 * He plays chess and beats all the members of the school chess club.
 * The Klade worry that the Doctor is from before Last Contact.

The Doctor's items

 * The Doctor has built a sonic suitcase that can (amongst other things) open doors with sonic vibrations.
 * The TARDIS outer shell is fully regenerated, including the writing and the light on top. He keeps it in his garden.
 * The Doctor drives a Trabant, which he obtained in East Germany.

History

 * In the far future, the universe is ruled by the Emperor.
 * Ferran reads the Doctor's memories, and sees — among other things — multiple wars, rape, flooding mines, stock market crashes, AIDS, concentration camps, anthrax and Agent Orange as examples of evil on Earth.

Individuals

 * Iris Wildthyme visited the Doctor during the 1980s.
 * Klade historical footage reveals that the Doctor was accompanied by "a tall man and a dark skinned woman" when he encountered the species on Falkus. This could be Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor, or possibly Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester.

Planets

 * Neo-phobus (aka Voga) is mentioned.
 * Falkus, one of Skaro's moons, is mentioned several times.

Species

 * The Klade are implied to have been created by the Daleks.
 * The Hunters are humanoid with elongated bodies.
 * Faction Klade are members of an alliance from the far future.

Vehicles

 * The Doctor steals the space shuttle Atlantis to rescue Miranda.

Behind the scenes

 * This is the fifth story in the "Earth Arc".
 * The three parts of this novel are set in three time periods: "The Early 1980s", "The Mid-1980s", and "The Late 1980s".
 * Miranda turns 16 in Part Two. Part Three is three years later in November when she is 19.
 * Guns 'N Roses (1987) and Phil Collin's "Two Hearts" (1988) are mentioned in Part Two.
 * The Doctor saw Bill and Ted (1989) in Part Three.
 * February 2001 is "a little over eleven years" from Part Three.
 * Despite conflicting references, PROSE: Trading Futures confirmed Part Three is set in 1989. This places Part Two in 1986.
 * Miranda appears in later novels, and is also featured in a spin-off comic series, Miranda, published during 2003.
 * Claudia is a reference to Claudia Marwood from the 1997 erotic novel The Stranger by Portia Da Costa published by Virgin Books under their Black Lace range. The book is centred around an amnesiac character named Dr. Paul Bowman who is a thinly veiled version of the Eighth Doctor.
 * The Doctor instigating Last Contact was to feature in Lance Parkin's unfinished Enemy of the Daleks, originally slotted for release in November 1999. The novel would have also linked to Parkin's The Infinity Doctors and Kate Orman and Jon Blum's Unnatural History. It is unclear in Father Time (or perhaps intentionally ambiguous) if Last Contact had not yet happened for the Doctor, or if it was an unseen or unpublished adventure wiped with the rest of his memories.
 * Lance Parkin has written two stories set between events in the novel that expand on its events:
 * Iris Explains, published in the charity anthology Missing Pieces, shows the visiting the Doctor and Miranda, expanding on Miranda's recollection of Iris's visit in the novel. The story claims Miranda's full name is "Miranda Who".
 * The School of Doom, published in Myth Makers #12, features the Doctor and Miranda facing the Headmaster on the first day of school. This story provides more information about the four surviving elementals.

Reprint
This book is available as an ebook from the Amazon Kindle store.

Continuity

 * The Doctor uses a Martian greeting first used in PROSE: Legacy. Bernice Summerfield also uses it in PROSE: The Dying Days.
 * The Doctor revisits Betty Stobbold, Reverend Stobbold's daughter from PROSE: The Burning.
 * Debbie sees a picture of the Doctor in Stalingrad from 1951. (PROSE: Endgame)
 * The Doctor tells Miranda various stories when she is a child, including tales of a planet where the moths and the ants are at war, (TV: The Web Planet) a man made of liquorice, (TV: The Happiness Patrol) and an empress in a jar. (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress)
 * Ferran mentions several records of the Doctor's activities during the late 20th century. These include:
 * Baghdad (PROSE: Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two)
 * Lloyds building (PROSE: Bullet Time)
 * The Martian Invasion (PROSE: The Dying Days)
 * The Kulan Invasion (PROSE: Escape Velocity)


 * The Doctor sees several visions of his future while he's at the heart of the Supremacy. These include:
 * Violin music at the heart of a storm. (PROSE: The Year of Intelligent Tigers)
 * "The Doctor ducked as a large robot arm swung a silver fist at his head", a sentence which is copied in PROSE: Hope.
 * A swarm of wasps. (PROSE: Eater of Wasps)
 * A man with a bowler hat and a clipboard walking through mud. (PROSE: Anachrophobia)
 * Felix Mather as an old grey-haired man. (PROSE: Trading Futures)
 * A young woman in a scarlet tunic smiling at him. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * A crowd of people in renaissance clothing. (PROSE: EarthWorld)
 * A planet named Albert. (PROSE: Grimm Reality)
 * The Doctor sees himself standing on a beach with a man with closely-cropped hair, watching Earth's dying sun being eclipsed by the Supremacy. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
 * The Doctor later returned to the Berlin Wall in his ninth incarnation, (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?) and when the Tenth Doctor returned, he recalled his two previous visits. (PROSE: Autonomy)