The Pit (novel)

The Pit is the twelfth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It was written by Neil Penswick, was released in 1993 and featured the Seventh Doctor and Bernice.

Publisher's summary
For two weeks now it has been the same message again and again, and it’s getting stronger; death and destruction, the end of all things, Armageddon.

In an attempt to lift the Doctor out of his irritable and erratic mood, Bernice suggests he investigates the mystery of the Seven Planets — an entire planetary system that disappeared without trace several decades before Bernice was born.

One of the Seven Planets is a nameless giant, quarantined against all intruders. But when the TARDIS materialises, it becomes clear that the planet has other visitors: a hit-squad of killer androids; a trespassing scientist and his wife; and two shape-changing criminals with their team of slaves.

As riot and anarchy spread on the system’s colonised worlds, the Doctor is flung into another universe while Bernice closes in on the horror that is about to be unleashed — a horror that comes from a terrible secret in the Time Lords’ past.

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * General Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu
 * William Blake
 * Butler
 * Swarf
 * Chopra
 * Archon
 * Spike
 * Major John Carlson
 * Bulbir Singh Mann
 * Academician Brown
 * Jarak Romer
 * Ell Romer
 * Melanie Carlson
 * The Fellowship
 * Colonel Philips
 * Yssgaroth

Astronomical objects

 * The Seven Planets are in the Althosian system.

The Doctor

 * The Doctor kneels to Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu.
 * The most pious person the Doctor has ever met is a French Jesuit missionary in Africa.

Gallifrey

 * The Seal of Rassilon is an ancient symbol for warding off evil.
 * Gallifrey translates to literally mean "they that walk in shadows".

Individual Gallifreyans

 * General Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu is a Gallifreyan military leader against Yssgaroth. He only has one arm.

Individuals

 * Bernice Summerfield is now 31 years old.

Writers

 * Susan loved the works of William Blake.
 * William Blake fell through a portal in 1811.

Animals

 * The Doctor once had a marmoset thrown at him by a Cun.

Continuity

 * TV: State of Decay introduced the legend of the Time Lords' war against the Great Vampires. General Kopyion is revealed as Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu, the legendary Time Lord who led the war.
 * Rassilon's experiments and the war with the Vampires are further outlined in PROSE: Interference - Book Two.
 * The Doctor may have been partially aware of the events of this story, including his own involvement with them, prior to his arrival in the Althosian system as his previous incarnation once commented to his companion Evelyn Smythe that, from what he has heard, his future self is "always blowing up planets." (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor)