Shakedown (novelisation)

For the independent video production upon which this novel was based, see Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.

Shakedown
Doctor:	[[doctor::Seventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Benny, Roz, Chris
Main enemy:	Sontarans, Rutans
Main setting:	Megerra, 2376 Sentarion, 2376 Space Station Alpha, 2376 Tiger Moth, 2376
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Virgin Books]]
Writer:	Terrance Dicks
Release details
Release number:	45
Release date:	December 1995
Format:	Paperback Book, ? Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 042620459X

Publisher's summary

'The Sontarans can never defeat us. It is we who will win.'

For thousands of years the Sontaran clone-warriors and the Rutan gestalt have fought each other across the galaxy. Now the Sontarans have a plan to strike at the heart of the Rutan Empire, and utterly defeat the Rutan race.

The Doctor has his suspicions, but only one Rutan spy knows the Sontarans' secret. He is being pursued from planet to planet by Chris and Roz and by a Sontaran hit squad. After a confrontation aboard the racing space-yacht Tiger Moth, the chase culminates on the library planet Sentarion - where Professor Bernice Summerfield's researches into the history of the Sontaran/Rutan war turn into explosive reality.

Characters

• The Doctor
  • Has grey eyes.
  • Holds a Master of Arts with the University of Antares.
  • Is known as "The Infamous General Smith" by the Sontarans because of his actions in the first third of the story.

• Bernice Summerfield
  • Spends much of her time on the planet Sentarion doing research for the Doctor.
  • Has begun to evidence the Doctor's habit of getting into so much trouble that people can't kill them (she can't be killed in the sacred precinct. Nor can she leave the sacred precinct. It's the law).

• Roz Forrester
  • Poses as a Pink.

• Chris Cwej
  • Poses as a Pink.

• Lisa Derrane

• Garshak
  • The super intelligent Ogron
  • Got his job because one of the other candidates mysteriously had both their arms ripped off. It was some sort of accident...

• Steg

References

• The Great Mother is the repository of the Rutan gestalt intelligence.

• The Pinkerton Agency (aka 'The Pinks), also known as The Eye That Never Sleeps is an infamous spy organisation that flourished as far back as the 19th century.

• The Sontaran Military Code requires the death penalty for every infraction.

• The Time Lords seem to support the Rutans in their war with the Sontarans.

Notes

• The middle section of this novel novelises the Reeltime Pictures video production Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, and includes photographs from that production. The novel version also intentionally ties into Lords of the Storm, published in that same month.

• The novel as a whole provides what is basically a 3 part adventure; before, during and after Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.

• This is the first novelisation written by Terrance Dicks since his final contribution to the Target Novelisations line, The Space Pirates in 1990. His next Doctor Who-related novelisation would not be published until Invasion of the Bane, an adaptation of an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, was published in 2007.

Continuity

• Chris returns to Mega City in BNA: Mean Streets.

• The Doctor is forgiven by the Rutans for killing one of them on Fang Rock. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)

Timeline

• This story takes place after NA: The Also People
• This story takes place before NA: Just War

External links

• Shakedown at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Shakedown at The Whoniverse

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