Combat Magicks (novel)

Combat Magicks was the sixty-fifth novel in the BBC New Series Adventures series. It was written by Steve Cole and featured the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan.

Publisher's summary[edit | edit source]

The TARDIS arrives in Gaul in 451AD, on the eve of battle between the forces of Attila the Hun and those of the crumbling Roman Empire. But the Doctor soon finds that both sides are being helped by sinister, supernatural creatures.

While Graham makes allies in the Roman camp and Ryan is pursued by the enigmatic Legion of Smoke, the Doctor and Yasmin are pressed into service as Attila's personal sorcerers. But the Doctor knows there is science behind the combat magicks — and that the true war will pit all humanity against a ruthless alien threat.

Plot[edit | edit source]

to be added

Characters[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

The Thirteenth Doctor and Team TARDIS take part in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
The TARDIS materialises in Gaul between the towns of Orléans and Chalons, near the small town of Catalaunum.
The Legion of Smoke have Arcturan grenades. The Doctor notes that she is unaware of them invading Earth during this period.
Graham watches Harryhausen movies.

Notes[edit | edit source]

An audiobook was released by BBC Physical Audio on 22 November 2018, read by Mandip Gill.
A short description of all three novels accompanying Series 11 was published in DWM 531, p. 80.
The book had been commissioned by the author himself and written before Series 11 began airing. The only information available to the authors was a character crib sheet, script extracts from The Woman Who Fell to Earth and some images.
The book received a preview on the official Doctor Who Wattpad account, alongside The Good Doctor.

Continuity[edit | edit source]

When Attila comments that the Doctor and her friends do not look Roman, the Doctor observes that Attila "should have seen [her] last face", a reference to the Twelfth Doctor's resemblance to Pompeii resident Lobus Caecilius (TV: The Fires of Pompeii, The Girl Who Died).
When Ryan first mentions the Doctor and the TARDIS, Liss mentions reports of a strange blue box found outside Rome when Nero was emperor (TV: The Romans), and similar reports of the box from Pompeii (TV: The Fires of Pompeii, AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan), learning the name of the box from a carving of the box, a man and a woman who served as a family's household gods (Although Ryan naturally assumes that the Doctor was the woman in the carvings rather than the man).

External links[edit | edit source]

Official Combat Magicks page at Penguin Books