The Fires of Pompeii (novelisation)

The Fires of Pompeii was a novelisation based on the 2008 television episode The Fires of Pompeii. It was written by the original writer James Moran and released by Target Books on 14 July 2022.

Publisher's summary
"My masters will follow the example of Rome... our mighty empire bestraddling the whole of civilization!"

It is AD 79, and the TARDIS lands in Pompeii on the eve of the town's destruction. Mount Vesuvius is ready to erupt and bury its surroundings in molten lava, just as history dictates. Or is it?

The Doctor and Donna find that Pompeii is home to impossible things: circuits made of stone, soothsayers who read minds and fiery giants made of burning rock. From a lair deep in the volcano, these creatures plot the end of humanity - and the Doctor soon finds he has no way to win...

Chapter titles

 * 1) Prologue: Dramatis personae
 * 2) Chapter I: Veni, vidi, vici
 * 3) Chapter II: In media res
 * 4) Chapter III: Caecilius est in hortō
 * 5) Chapter IV: Sub rosa
 * 6) Chapter V: Prima facie
 * 7) Chapter VI: Quid pro quo
 * 8) Chapter VII: Caveat emptor
 * 9) Chapter VIII: Dies irae
 * 10) Chapter IX: Tempus fugit
 * 11) Chapter X: Rigor mortis
 * 12) Chapter XI: Carpe diem
 * 13) Chapter XII: Alea iacta est

Deviations from televised story

 * There's a scene set inside the TARDIS just before the Doctor and Donna arrive in Rome, in which Donna begins to have second thoughts about deciding to travel with him.
 * The Doctor explains the stallholder's cockney accent as the TARDIS translation matrix matching him to a social class she's familiar with.
 * There is an extended scene of the Doctor and Donna searching for the TARDIS.
 * The Doctor and Donna discuss Sherlock Holmes, with the Doctor telling her he was real though fictionalised by Arthur Conan Doyle. (PROSE: All Consuming Fire, AUDIO: All-Consuming Fire)
 * The Doctor tries to stop Donna using the word volcano and recalls Romana threw out his "detective hat".
 * Donna smashes a vase the Doctor saved to prove a point.
 * The soothsayer is named as Mira.
 * Lucius's prophetic warning to the Doctor that "she is returning" and his prediction to Donna that "there is something on [her] back" are omitted. Instead, he plays on Donna's insecurities, referencing the recent loss of her father, her ordinary life on Earth and how she would be more useful as "food for the spiders".
 * The Doctor speculates the Pyrovile pursuing him and Quintus might be a Krarg.
 * There's a brief scene in which Evelina tells the Doctor about Donna's warning and kidnapping by the Sibylline Sisterhood.
 * Whilst tied down in the sisterhood's temple Donna recalls other recent bad experiences, including creatures of fat, mistaking a taxi driver for a disguised alien, a bad haircut and "KebabGate".
 * Metella expresses concern at Evelina's transformation and decides to keep her away from the sisterhood.
 * The family's attempt to shelter from the eruption is expanded.
 * The Doctor and Donna's final scene in the TARDIS is extended: the Doctor mentions how he won't be forgetting the family's faces in a hurry- especially Caecilius -and that he will continue to check in on them.
 * How the family rebuilt their lives afterwards is expanded on.
 * The epilogue ends with a section that talks about how the family's belief in their household gods continued for subsequent generations, with their descendants thousands of years later regularly joking that they must have a guardian angel watching over them.

Writing and publishing notes
to be added

Additional cover images
to be added

Audiobook
This Target Book was released as an audiobook on 14 July 2022 complete and unabridged by BBC Audio and read by Clare Corbett.