Doctor Who Tie-in Novels

Title:	Doctor Who Tie-in Novels
Creator:	Various
Date(s):	1960s - present
Medium:	books
Fandom:	Doctor Who
Language:
External Links:	List of Doctor Who novelisations and Virgin New Adventures on Wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Doctor Who Tie-in Novels are professional works set in the Doctor Who universe, that are meant to complement the source material. Some works are direct novelizations of early episodes, or Missing Adventures occurring within the main continuity, and are often canon compliant. Others, such as the New Adventures series added to existing canon.

The New Adventures continue where the final episode of the original TV show left off, along with comics and audio dramas, were considered the official sources of where fans would get their fix during the show's hiatus. There was much discussion of the canonicity of these works at the time they were published. Much of the New Adventures was later jossed by the revival of Doctor Who. Though one of the novels "Human Nature" was adapted into a two-part episode for the third season of the revived TV series by its original author Paul Cornell. After the 1996 TV movie aired, Virgin lost the rights from the BBC and Bernice Summerfield, a companion created for the series would become the main focus of the remaining books in the series.

Some elements of the Tie-In novels have found their way into accepted Doctor Who fanon. The best known example is the Master's childhood nickname, Koschei. This name first appeared in a Missing Adventures novel, and was never mentioned in any of the live action versions of Doctor Who, but is a common name applied to the Master in fanfiction.

Virgin

NA as commercial fan fiction and the role of women writers

Re: commercial fan fiction.

AFAIK the only major publisher of what was essentially commercialised fan fiction, Virgin Publishing Ltd, spent several years publishing 24 original Doctor Who novels a year. For the most part these books were edited by a woman, Rebecca Levene, and yet in the entire period (1991-1997) they produced both the New and Missing Adventures ranges Virgin published one woman.

I suspect there are more complex subcultural things happening here, however, as Doctor Who is a fandom generally dominated by gay men - and when you start counting the gay male authors of Virgin's output, the number ranks up pretty quickly. Even Russell Davies had one published, years before he became producer of the TV series. (And half the writers of the current series are ex-fanfic writers.)

Virgin New Adventures

Continues where the original TV series leaves off, continuing the adventures of the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

BBC

Eighth Doctor Adventures

Continuation focusing on the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) set between the 1996 movie and the revival.

Fan and Pro Writers

Several writers of the novels also wrote fic or other content in fanzines, and engaged with the fandom further.

• Paul Cornell, writer of VNAs Love and War and Human Nature, reworked his Queen Bat fic Total Eclipse into the book Timewyrm: Revelation.
• John Peel, writer of VNA Timewyrm: Genesys and the infamous EDA War of the Daleks, contributed to the fanzine Cosmic Masque. His other EDA Legacy of the Daleks was allegedly based on a fic written for the zine.
• Lance Parkin, writer of VNA The Dying Days and Faction Paradox story Warlords of Utopia, was a regular contributor to the zine Enlightenment.

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