Release number 29 ISBN 0-426-20489-1 Publisher Virgin Books Followed by Burning Heart | Publication date December 1996 Originally published December 1996 Genre Speculative fiction Preceded by The Plotters | |
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Series Doctor Who book:
Virgin Missing Adventures Subject Featuring:
Fifth Doctor; Seventh Doctor
Adric, Nyssa, Tegan; Chris, Roz Set in Period between
Castrovalva and
Four to Doomsday Similar Lance Parkin books, Virgin Missing Adventures books, Speculative fiction books | ||
Cold Fusion is an original novel written by Lance Parkin and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Fifth Doctor, with Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan, immediately after Castrovalva. Also appearing is the Seventh Doctor, with Chris and Roz, from between the Virgin New Adventures novels Return of the Living Dad and The Death of Art. It was the only one of the Virgin Doctor Who novels to feature more than one Doctor.
Contents
Synopsis
The Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Adric and Nyssa arrive on an unnamed ice planet (which goes unnamed throughout the novel), which has settlements at the equator and not anywhere else. The planet is run by the Scientifica, a technocratic society allied with the Earth Empire, but there is a more than usual presence of Adjudicators on the planet. Tegan and Nyssa get a hotel room where they run into a man who claims to be "Bruce Jovanka" with a bad Australian accent, while the Doctor and Adric enter the Scientifica's complex and encounter three very diverse characters: Whitfield, the woman who runs the Scientifica; Tertullian Medford, the primary Adjudicator on the planet; and a badly decaying woman who the Doctor subsequently learns is Gallifreyan when she regenerates and nicknames "Patience" (she was previously known as only the Patient).
When the Doctor and Adric are ambushed by a beautiful black woman on the skitrain tracks, then arrested for being alien spies, Tegan and Nyssa run into their own troubles with the husky blond "Bruce". And all the meanwhile, a little man is elsewhere on the planet, investigating a strange machine found buried in the subterranean soil.
Adaptation
In July 2016, Big Finish Productions announced that they would release an audio drama adaptation of the novel, with Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhouse reprising their television roles as the Fifth and Seventh Doctors, Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa and Adric respectively. In addition, Yasmin Bannerman and Travis Oliver reprise their roles as the Seventh Doctor's companions Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej from Big Finish's adaptations of the New Adventures novels Damaged Goods and Original Sin.
Reception
Readers of Doctor Who Magazine gave the novel a rating of 76.69% (from 845 votes).