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You may be looking for the titular festival.

Festival of Death was the thirty-fourth novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Jonathan Morris, released 4 September 2000 and featured the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K9.

Publisher's summary[]

2000 BBC Books edition[]

The Beautiful Death. The ultimate theme-park ride. For twenty galactic credits, you can find out what it's like to be dead.

But something has gone wrong. Visitors expecting a sightseeing tour of the afterlife have been transformed into mindless zombies, set on a killing rampage.

The TARDIS arrives in the aftermath of the disaster and, to the Doctor's baffled delight, he is immediately congratulated for saving the population from certain and terrible destruction.

The only problem is, he hasn't actually done it yet.

Aided and abetted by a drug-addled hippie lizard, a hard-hitting investigative reporter and a suicidal ship's computer, the Doctor has no choice but to travel back in time and discover exactly how he became a hero.

And then he finds out. He did it by sacrificing his life.

2013 BBC Books edition[]

The Beautiful Death is the ultimate theme-park ride: a sightseeing tour of the afterlife. But something has gone wrong, and when the Fourth Doctor arrives in the aftermath of the disaster, he is congratulated for saving the population from destruction – something he hasn't actually done yet. He has no choice but to travel back in time and discover how he became a hero. And then he finds out. He did it by sacrificing his life.

Plot[]

to be added

Characters[]

Worldbuilding[]

Alcoholic beverages[]

Cultural References[]

  • ERIC sings Don't Dilly Dally on the Way by Charles Collins.

Drugs[]

The Doctor[]

Famous Persons[]

  • Romana quotes Richard Dawkins' saying "However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain there are vastly more ways of being dead."
  • The Doctor and Romana quote Shakespeare's line "What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks, and formless ruin of oblivion." The Doctor also misquotes "Alas, poor Yorick!", a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
  • The Doctor quotes "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," a quote attributed to Mark Twain.

History[]

Literature[]

  • The co-pilot of the Montressor reads Shrieking Boy Veepjill - The Myth Behind the Truth - An Autobiography.
  • Magazines available in the year 3012 include Guards and Guarding and Holding Captive.
  • The Doctor quotes multiple passages from the Bible, including:
    • "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." from Psalm 23:4
    • "Oh grave, where is thy victory?" from 1 Corinthians 15:55

Planets[]

Species[]

  • Alabast elephosaurs are highly immune to painkillers.
  • Gonzies are a race of short, orange-skinned reptilian humanoids from the planet Gonzos.

Spaceships[]

  • Yetraxxi spaceships have a hairdryer design to them.

Time Lords[]

  • Academi Plurix coined the term pre-jà vu, the sensation that one is going to have been somewhere before. It applies only to Time Lords.
  • The Doctor and Romana make multiple mentions of the Web of Time and the First Law of Time.

Notes[]

  • This novel was re-released on 7 March 2013 with a new cover to celebrate the Doctor Who 50th anniversary.
  • Romana quotes Richard Dawkins and tells the Doctor that the quote was by someone he wouldn't know. This is a reference to Lalla Ward being married to Richard Dawkins after previously in a relationship with Tom Baker.
  • The novel shares a title with a track from The Residents' 1979 album, Eskimo.

Continuity[]

Additional cover images[]

External links[]

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