The Face-Eater (novel)

The Face-Eater was the eighteenth BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel. It featured the Eighth Doctor and Samantha Jones. It is the first of two novels Simon Messingham wrote for the EDAs (The Infinity Race was the second).

Publisher’s summary

The Doctor and Sam arrive on Proxima II, one of the earliest planets colonised in humanity’s first big push into space. But instead of a brave new world, they find a settlement rife with superstition and unrest.

The native Proximans are inexplicably dying out. Humans too are being killed in horrific ways, with each face being stripped bare.

Posing as investigators from Earth, the Doctor and Sam must track down the force moving through the dark catacombs beneath Proxima City. It seems that the superstitious whisperings of the colonists may be well founded — that the sinister Face-Eater from Proximan mythology has awakened from its long sleep, to drive out all those who would defile its world...

Chapter Titles

Identity Parade

1: Ben Fuller
2: Clark
3: Proxima City
4: Sam
5: Helen Percival
6: Rupinder
7: Marlowe and Sun
8: Joan Betts
9: The Doctor

All Change

10: At the Mountains of Madness
11: Tales of the City
12: Dear Heart
13: Sushupti
14: Down in the Streets
15: Funhouse
16: Jack's Back
17: All's Right With the World
18: The Friend Catcher
19: Waking Up
20: Out With the Old

Plot

to be added

Characters

Eighth Doctor
Samantha Jones
Helen Percival
Ben Fuller
Joan Betts
Jake Leary
The Face-Eater
de Winter
Jeffries
Sims

References

Books

Professor Joan Betts wrote The Life and Customs of the Marine Saurians after spending three years investigating the Sea Devil base that was involved in the attack on Sea Base 4 in 2084.

Colony planets

Proxima 2 is Earth's first interstellar colony.

Corporations

Global Mining Corporation has records of the Doctor and a female associate who uses several aliases including Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith and Ace.
The female associate is listed as having graduated from Geneva Corporate University in 2124.

The Doctor

The Doctor falls down a hole and breaks his leg.
The Doctor rambles as he talks to Jake Leary, mentioning a number of things. "I've seen it all over the galaxy. Werewolves, manitous, shape-shifters, Rutans, robots. Even the Master has been known to give it a whirl. And did I tell you about that time at Crook Marsham? Most memorable."
When the Doctor is attacked by the Face Eater, he sees: Susan Foreman and Polly Wright laughing, his old diary, a Prydonian headdress, Sam's face, and a Cyberman floating through space.

Individuals

Sam Jones gets blown up while breaking into an office and gets third degree burns, but recovers. She then gets into a car and crashes it, the crash knocking her out and giving her numerous bruises.
Sam ponders what the Doctor's mother must think of his behaviour.

Individuals by profession

Helen Percival is colony executive.
Joan Betts is a xenoanthropologist.

Species

The Rutans gained their shape shifting ability through genetic tampering.
Mention is made of a Bug Eyed Monster (BEM). This is how UNIT supposedly classifies such things.
The Proximan natives are rodent creatures that can mimic others. They are telepathic and were once intelligent, but lose the telepathy and shared consciousness when the Face-Eater is destroyed.
The Doctor claims that Mars has two indigenous species, one of them being the Ice Warriors.
Joan Betts is killed by a Face-Eater.
The Face-Eater is also known to native Proximans as F'Seeta; it is a shape shifter.

Spacecraft

The New Horizon was the first human large-scale colony transporter and arrived on Proxima 2 in 2128.

Technology

Sam Jones is still a little bit paranoid about nanotech being in her body.

Notes

Continuity

The events of TV: Warriors of the Deep are mentioned.
The Doctor's imprisonment in PROSE: Seeing I is mentioned by the shape shifter.
There is a flashback sequence to TV: Planet of the Spiders.
Sam no longer has the nanotech in her body she accquired in PROSE: Beltempest.
The Doctor tells Leary of the time he met the Hoothi. (PROSE: Love and War)
The Doctor mentions that the Master once had a go at being a werewolf. (TV: Survival)

Tardis